Backpacking through the Western Ghats – Day 9 (the last day): Kodachadri Hills to Maravanthe Beach to Kundapur

The last 2 days that we spent at Kodachadri hills were pretty eventful. I woke up slightly late in the morning, but felt much better. Even the fever had come down. After a sumptuous hot breakfast, I felt even better.


So, me and my friend got ready to begin my descent. We had walked about 2 kms when I started feeling uncomfortable again. It looked like I hadn’t recovered completely. We retraced our way back to Kodachadri, where we got a lift from a tourist on his jeep. He was kind enough to drop us at Kollur. We had our lunch at Kollur.


From Kollur, we caught a bus to Kundapur and then another bus that took us to Maravanthe Beach.


Now, Maravanthe Beach is really special to me owing to its uniqueness. If one were to stand on NH 17 (National Highway 17), on one side of the road would be the Maravanthe Beach and the Arabian Sea and on the other side would be the Sowparnika river. So basically two types of water sources (fresh and saline) on either side of the highway.


Maravanthe beach is also known as the poor man’s beach and is a favourite spot with truck drivers. Though, this beach is one of the prettiest on the Malabar coast. A lot of eatery joints are present around this beach that offer mouth watering sea food.


The waters around Maravanthe are a great place to spot turtles, dolphins and underwater sea life. Snorkelling and scuba diving are very popular here. Turtle Bay Resorts, 1 km away from the main highway and the Maravanthe beach and Soan holidays offer a great holiday experience along with the provision of adventure activities.


My health started feeling wonderful the moment my eyes sighted the Maravanthe beach and my nose smelled the salt in the breeze. As soon as we stepped on the beach, we removed our boots. It was fabulous to walk barefoot on the beach after walking in heavy boots the past 8 days.


We did some walking, mild jogging, some crunches and then put this exercise to great work by snacking at the nearby shack. Sleeping on the beach with the evening sun shining on our faces and with our bellies full was very close to a heavenly experience for us.


As it got closer to sunset, we started watching the changing colours of the sky and the sea. More people started coming into the beach. A lot of interesting kids playing in the water grabbed our attention for a while.


As it got close to dark, we dusted ourselves and started on our last trek – the 13 km stretch from Maravanthe Beach to Kundapur, where we had to board our Bangalore bound bus in the night.

Total Distance Trekked: 16 Km
Trekking Time: 4 hours

Overall, 162 kms (+20% uncalculated trek) covered by foot in our 9 day backpacking expedition through the Western Ghats. 

To view the entire set of photos, click the album below.

Backpacking through the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India

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Backpacking through the Western Ghats – Day 7 and 8: Kodachadri Hills, Karnataka, India

The rains pelted all night, but let up by early morning. Our campsite in the Mookambika wildlife sanctuary wore a very clean wet look in the morning. The world around us didn’t look as scary as it did the previous night when we were walking in pitch darkness in heavy rain.


Shortly, we packed up our camping gear and started trekking towards the Kodachadri mountain that stood like a monolith in front of us. Soon, we came to a badly rutted jeep road and kept following it till we reached the Santosh hotel, which is run by a local Keralite family.


Since it was early morning, the food was yet to be prepared. While our breakfast was getting ready, we washed ourselves at the gently flowing stream of icy cold water that was tumbling from the hills. After our dip, we had a hearty meal of puttu, chana and piping hot tea. The breakfast was extremely healthy and yet yummy. We also got proper directions from the hotel owner.


Thus fortified, we continued our trek towards the foothill of Kodachadri. A short while after leaving Santosh’s shop, we found 3 paths and took the hardened path in the middle as advised by the hotel owner. This was one of the toughest sections of the trek as it was steep for the most part. Bamboos, thorn bushes and shrubs with spiky leaves adorned this trail. There were red ants swarming all over and leeches were having a field day thanks to the heavy overnight rain.


We had been climbing for almost an hour when the steep incline gave way to level ground. It is here that we took a short break and began taking in the sights of the green vistas and meadows on the surrounding hills and valleys and the Mookambika Wildlife Sanctuary nestling way below in the valley to the west. The left side of the hill is an almost perpendicular drop of 1,150m.


After another 3 hours, we reached Kodachadri, which has a PWD bungalow and Shiva and Shankaracharya temples. We cleaned ourselves at the near water stream, offered our prayers at the temple and had sumptuous lunch served by the temple priest’s wife. We replenished all our water stock and headed further up. We climbed for another 3 kms before we came to a little temple-like structure called the Sarvajna Peetha that marks the spot where Shankaracharya is said to have meditated.


We found ourselves a nice flat spot to pitch in our tents at the edge of the cliff, set camp and set out to collect firewood to build our camp fire. The howling wind made it difficult to get a proper fire going, but we somehow managed to cook our dinner and keep ourselves warm as the temperature started plummeting.


The next morning, I woke up groggily. I felt uneasy in the stomach, but didn’t give much thought to it. We built a small fire, cooked a quick breakfast and started our trek towards the nearby waterfall and Ganesh caves. It was during this trek that I realized that I was running a fever. Somehow, I laboured back to our camp and we packed all our stuff into our backpacks and headed 3 km down to the temple.


We had lunch at the temple priest’s house. I popped in some pills and went to sleep. In the evening I felt slightly better. Had an early dinner,popped in some more pills and slept again with the hope that I would be fit by the morning.

Total Distance Trekked: 31 Kms
Trekking Time: 10 hours

To view the entire set of photos, click the album below.

Backpacking through the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India

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Backpacking through the Western Ghats – Day 6: Mangalore – Kollur – Kodachadri Forests

My friend and I had visited Kalahatti falls the previous day and had jumped umpteen number of buses to reach Mangalore late in the night. But, the comfort of a hotel room allowed us to get up early to catch the first bus out of Mangalore and towards Kundapur.


Our first bus took us to Kundapur. Then we took a bus to Kollur. Had our lunch here and then paid a visit to the Kollur Mookambika temple. This temple, which is nestled in the Kodachadri hills is an important religious place in the district. The 14m high, centuries old, iron Dwajasthamba (flag-staff) in front of the temple has been compared in quality to the iron pillar of Delhi, for it has withstood the vagaries of time without corroding.


We took the late afternoon bus out of Kollur that took us to the Karakatta gate. There were only 2 buses per day plying towards Karakatta gate. We were planning to enter the Kodachadri forests from here. It was raining heavily by the time we got down at Karakatta gate and we were drenched in no time. And owing to the heavy rain, darkness set in real quick. And to make matters worse, we could hardly see our way through the jungle in the heavy rain even with our headlamps in the brightest mode. Leeches will feeding on us in large numbers. We were right in the middle of the real WILD and had no sense of direction.

Our only source of direction was the lightning strikes that illuminated the entire forest and our path. And that helped us locate a small flat where we decided to camp for the night. After setting up camp, we removed all the leeches clinging onto us, got ourselves dry, had bread and cheese for dinner since we couldn’t light a fire and crashed for the night.

Total Distance Trekked: 8 Kms
Trekking Time: 3 hours

To view the entire set of photos, click the album below.

Backpacking through the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India

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