Meghane

Meghane Rain Trek – Sharavathi Valley.

This time my Visit was to one of the most beautiful belt in entire country and a bio diversity hot spot – Western Ghat’s Malenadu (‘Malenadu’ - A portion of Western Ghat which covers portions of Belgaum, Shimoga, Chikamangalore, Uttara Kannada, Kodagu and Hasan district)

We were a 10 members group this time and I had 4 of my friends from my office (Abhishek, Dayanand, Manohar and Rohan) and 5 friends of Abhishek (Badri, Nityanand, Somanath, Shubhoday and Venkatesh) with me.

Meghane was once a place which was visited by only Hard core trekkers and a very few people who stay there. It hardly had any roads which connect the place with rest of the world and the forest never heard any vehicle sound and before we visited, we expected the same, but to our disappointment, the place has found a lot of changes in last 2 years. Roads are constructed. However the roads are not good enough to travel in any vehicle in rainy season, but good enough to spoil the true forest scene. L

We reached the so called ‘Onti mane’ and found that it is just the 1^st house which you reach. However, there are not many homes near by and is a very small village.

Close to the Onti mane is a peak and the place is little challenging and since we visited during rainy season, we had absolutely no visibility. We had just 10 mts visibility and beyond that, what we saw was only Mist, Mist and Mist.

If you go only till there, then you have no reason to be happy. You pay huge amount to the guide and all you get is some walk and Excellent food on top of the hill. But, that not just what you have gone for. We had to go to some untouched place and we asked for it. Finally, we got something which we will carry in our memory for life time- The visit to a falls near by.

To guide us was the person from Onti mane who knew nook and corner of the forest and on 2^nd day early morning we started towards the falls. The falls was hardly 2-3kms far, but there was no connecting path at all. The guide made the road for us cutting the bushes and it was a great experience to reach the starting peak of waterfall. Later we walked back in the water stream itself till Onti mane and came back to the base where our Scorpio was waiting for us. Inspite of getting wet in rain for 2 days, we had to take one more bath in the base, get set and head back towards Sagara.

Could not take much photos since it was raining heavily and we had gone for a trek in rain and not really for the purpose of photography. J

Along with this, we also visited the Jog falls and got the stunning view from the famous - Mungaru male spot. here it is -->

How to reach.

Take a bus from Bangalore to Sagara/Bhatkala and from there, either engage a vehicle to reach Nagavalli (Nagavalli is 25kms from Bhatkala and 75kms from Sagara) or wait for the local bus.

You will need a guide to take you in the forest or else you will simply end up in trekking in the existing road. Also, there is a risk of getting caught by forest officials if you don’t have some localities with you.

Can contact me at travelntrekworld@gmail.com for contact details of the Guide.(The expense is high but I can say you get a good food and food becomes main part of the memory for sure.However I dont guarantee the money you pay is worth that much or not. )