A visit to nature's wonder - Sharavati Backwaters treknic
I have always wondered how mother Earth has been a boon to us. In a quest to see more of nature’s beauty and travel more, I got an opportunity to register for the two days Sharavati backwaters treknic. Being an aquaphobic, I wanted to conquer my fears, so this was an attempt to get friendly with it. BTC being the best one for organizing amazing treks, I left for the meeting point with very high hopes after a tiring day at office on Friday.
We left for Shimoga at around 11PM from majestic in TT. There was a brief introduction session from the participants and it was good to see people I met in some other treks. We started with antakshari only to realize the horror of this wonderful game. Puneeth started this game with his out-of-sync songs, and Vinod and Pavan added to the miseries.
I could not remember when I slept but when I woke up only to see the beauty of this wonderful Malnad area, the birth area of the well renowned poet Kuvempu. Now I know how could he become one of the most famous and celebrated poets the mankind has ever seen. Somehow the beauty of nature has a contribution in it. The tiredness of our overnight journey vanished in a moment seeing this beauty. We reached a place near Sagara and freshed up, filled our tummy with the yummy breakfast. And left the place to have a look around.
We could see so many waterfalls on the way, running eagerly to join God knows what. We stopped at various places and could only be in awe of the small streams and waterfalls around. I could only wonder how granular we are in front of this wonderful nature. My words can never do justice to what my eyes saw and what I could feel at that moment.
We all sat there in silence for so long enjoying every bit of that moment. It had started raining already, and it was already expected. We had lunch at a nearby place and walked to see some nearby places. We walked and walked for more than an hour on a road in jungle.
We started back to the place where we were gonna rest for the night and have dinner. We played and danced around the campfire for sometime and also some ghost stories made their way.
Now leeches have already feasted on some of our blood 😂. Pavan had a record of 4 leech bites, me and Arun had one leech bite each. Reena was on her first trek in rains and she was so scared of leeches that she started screaming when someone pranked about a leech on her leg.
The next morning we woke up to organizers call. And till then we had slept like there is no tomorrow. Pranking about the best snorer, we sipped the best tea of the malnad area. Soon breakfast was ready. Puneeth and others had ultra-light breakfast of 5+ Puris and yummy curry.
Thanks to Tridip for being the photographer of this trip, we clicked so many pics by the time we left for Sharavati backwaters for the much-awaited water sports. Soon after we reached the backwaters, we jumped to try kayaking first. It was such an awesome experience, with calmness of Sharavati and the greenery around. We could hear nothing but the water splash. Next was this water trampoline jumping. I am aquaphobic and you can understand the heights of fear I have the moment my feet were in water. I requested pavan to take me till the trampoline, Shruti accompanied me. We started jumping crazily and laughing at the heights we could all jump to. The instructor there did some really wonderful stunts, which I can only imagine myself doing in dreams. So, one by one started diving into water while jumping on the trampoline. My soul shivered for a while seeing this. I could only sit in silence, till the instructor there pointed at me to dive into water. Arun asked the instructor to do so, and I could not stop screaming, even though I had only learnt swimming recently. Somehow they successfully threw me into water. Harshal was really doing awesome stunts on that trampoline. Sangeeta overcame her fears of water and was enjoying too. Everyone was enjoying the water, some people even learnt swimming for the first time in Sharavati. With no interest in getting out of water, we moved out one by one. Sharavati had already befriended each and everyone of us.
It was time to have lunch and we ate our lunch in the plates we bought from our home rather than disposable plates/plastic. These are the simple things that BTC follows which I admire the most and which makes BTC a unique community.
Now it was time to visit the mighty jog falls. We could see the waterfalls from a height of 829 feet (Wikipedia) plunging down. The guide there said, the waterfall force and the volume increases with rain. We all had a brief discussion on which one is Raja, Rani, roarer and rocket. We started getting down the 1400+ steps, which we did in 10-15 mins. There we stood below the mighty falls, thinking how microscopic we humans are in front of this. We sat there for sometime appreciating God’s construction skills. And now was the horror part, climbing the 1400 steps. But then I realized I am a Trekker and I have done harder treks than this earlier. So, we were only few people in the front walking slowly with very few stops in between and finally made it to the top in 30 mins. Others joined us in 15-20 mins.
And all the places in our check list for this treknic were ticked off. We sat in our tt to head back to Bangalore, back to reality of our lives. We stopped at a restaurant in Shimoga and filled our tummies to full. We were so tired after a very productive day, we thought we were gonna sleep. Pavan was insisting on playing antakshari, but Arun was supercharged by Honey Singh's songs that he started dancing and forcing everyone to join. I was amazed by Priyank's energy and his super cool dance to some very good numbers. Shubha, being a dancer, was awesome too. We had to sleep cos we had office on Monday morning, the thought of which made us all very sad. We could get some rest and reached Bangalore at 430 in the morning with some very pleasant memories of Shimoga.
I will end my brief description of this fabulous treknic with a small note to be followed by every single person. These wonderful trails, waterfalls and natural places needs a favor from all of us. Enjoy them, explore them, sit and relax there, but leave it as a better place for other nature admirers. Do not spoil them with man made disasters like plastic. Visit and leave like you have never been there. Because only nature like this can make you more sensible, more wise, for it unfolds the mystery of many complex things into simple ones. I would definitely go back to this “heaven on Earth” sometime again. You should go too.
Written by : Apoorva Nimbargi
Date of
event : 17th & 18th June 2017
Place : Sharavati Backwaters
Pictures : BTC FB Page - Sharavati Backwaters
Post a Comment