As the year end ritual continues for the nambayz who are now graduated into nambayz-family, we were all looking out for that one long break as we plan to usher in the new year. Being the laggards, there was just about no planning in terms of any location/logistics and the week prior to Christmas is when we seriously scouted for some place where we can get assured accommodation. Given the supply-demand mismatch, we were least surprised when we were turned down in all the places we tried; sans one which had a last minute cancellation!
Supreeth yahoo'ed (not googled ah!) and got a laundry list of possible places and Vinni, it was to trip upon a cancellation. The place got booked between 27th-29th Dec and it is called Green Valley, farmhouse in the vicinity of the Dandeli forest reserve. We located this via the travel portal - http://www.dandeli.com/. Dandeli is the North-Karnataka district, about 480 kms from Bangalore. While we were lucky to get the train booked to Hubli on our onward leg, we had to make do with buses back from Dharwad for our return. Dandeli is in between Hubli and Dharwad and these two towns offer a good landing point to Dandeli.
Taking off in the Ajmer express on the night of 25th Dec, it was 7 of us heading out of Bangalore to Hubli - Vinni & Ashwini, Kata & Vinu, Kichi, Deepak (D) and your truly (Vinda). Supreeth and Suwarna had already started with their holidaying spree and were driving down in the car after crossing several others cities of our state to catch us at Hubli. The train journey was quite uneventful as we dozed off and had quite a good sleep. Reaching Hubli at about 6 am, Supreeth and Suwarna joined us at the train station. A jeep was sent to take us to Green Valley which arrived a full one hour late and subsequently it was a pretty long journey via Dandeli. We reached the farmhouse at 12-30 pm.
The CottageThe farmhouse has a very serene and verdant ambience. Cottages amidst the plantations add to its pristine beauty. The icing on the cake is that there are no mobile signals in the vicinity; which means we were all cutoff from the daily hustle-bustle. With over 2 days to spare, time was never a constraint and life seemed blissful. We went up to a small waterfall where we waddled around for an hour before becoming ravenously hungry. Food at Green Valley is commendable and we had some great helpings to ourselves. Evening was dedicated to a scenic location called 'Synthera Rocks'; a large monolithic rock born out of a volcano with water flowing underneath. Indeed I felt overwhelmed at the sight of the huge rock. While swimming is strictly prohibited, it was refreshing to just sit and enjoy the nature's marvelous creation. Returning to our cottages, we had a good round of dumb-charades around the bon-fire and retired to bed looking forward to an exciting second day.
Synthera Rock - This one rocks!! 
Dumb-CThe main attraction of Dandeli is the rafting in river Kali. While the forest safari is yet another interesting proposition, seldom do we get to see the rare breeds of carnivores that rule these jungles like the black panther or the tigers. So we were all looking forward to rafting. Our slots were booked for the afternoon and so we decided to get holed up in another water fall close to the farm house which was slightly bigger than the one we visited on day one. Spending close to an hour playing in the meandering stream amidst the rocks, we returned to our cottage excitedly looking forward to the rafting in Kali. This was one helluva experience. Since we were 9 of us and another couple joined us from Green Valley, we got split into 2 groups for our rafting adventure. The 4 couples got into one raft with an instructor while the 3 bachelors got teamed up with a family of 4 from Bangalore. Our instructor was a well-built Nepali who maneuvered the raft deftly and we thoroughly enjoyed the 9 km cruise. This also included what the rafting world calls 'rapids' - water flowing at quicker than normal downstream pace owing to the rocky bottoms. We crossed a couple of level-2 an one level-3 rapid (level-4 and above is meant for professionals). The last leg included the 'surfing' - the raft goes upstream against the flow at a point where water splashes with a mighty force. I was almost carried out of the raft (though we are all secured with life-jackets and this poses no particular danger, it is fun to watch water staying above it!!) but luckily latched on to the raft, only to be pulled in by D. This experience will linger for sometime.
Back to those good ol' days!! 
The cool falls... 
The Rafting Team
River Kali
D, me and Kichi in the rafting gear
We were drenched to the bone after this and with very little energy left, all we could do was to curl up to our beds after a quick dinner. We were fast approaching the end of yet another memorable outing.
The path less taken...headin to Cavala caves
The jungle squirrel
The Cavala Cave entrance
Snake at the cave
The third day we had the morning open and we opted to go to a cave called Cavala coupled with a quasi jungle safari. While the starting points to the jungle safari and the Cavala caves are the same, the road is split beyond a certain point. We were indeed lucky to spot a bison on our way and a snake awaited our arrival at the cave. Reaching the cave is quite arduous and calls for a trek of about 3 kms followed by walking down around 400 steep steps. We had to stoop down and sometimes be on all 4 to go around the cave which has the stalagmites and stalactites inside. A formation very similar to the symbol of the Shiva-linga (the worldly form of Lord Shiva) is in the heart of the cave and visitors get to see some bats at close vicinity. As we headed back, our year end outing was coming to an end.
Supreeth and Suwarna parted ways as they continued their car-drive getaway while the rest 7 of us headed back to Bangalore via the bus from Dharwad. A much needed break in the midst of nature's glory and refreshing surroundings, this outing helped all of us rejuvenate at least till we set out again in the new year!
The parting shot..Suwarna,Sups,Kichi(background),D, me,Kata,Vinu,Ashwini & VinniPS:More fotos will follow as an online album later and will be posted as comments to this blog!
Labels: Dandeli, nambayz trip, nambayzfamily trip, weekend getaway
¶ Thursday, January 01, 2009 5 Comments
