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What started with a minor mishap on Sunday 9th Nov, 2008, ended up as quite an enjoyable trip with the seven of us, including TausifK, RamD, ShantanuG, VinayB, ShomaB and SmitaN. Leaving Bangalore at around 8:00 AM we reached the Cauvery Nature and Fishing camp at Bheemeshwari (about 100 KM from Bangalore via Kanakapura, Sathnur and Muthathi) around 11:00 AM to find that white water rafting had been stopped there from Nov 02, as the fishing season had started.
We immediately headed to Galibore, about 60km from Bheemeshwari in our cars – a Hyundai Accent and a Maruti 800. We came back to Sathnur (23 KM from Bheemeshwari) and then headed towards the Galibore Fishing Camp (36 KM from Sathnur). Galibore itself is about 95 KM from Bangalore, if directly reached. Mekedatu and Chunchi falls are all reachable in the nearby vicinity.
The last 10 KM stretch of reaching Galibore was a pain as the jungle road is absolutely un-tarred. Once we reached there we had lunch at around 2 PM and then started the rafting expedition where a jeep took us and the raft to a spot 5 KM upstream and then we rafted for about 20 minutes in the river Cauvery at the end of which we were left to play in the waters for about 30 mins.
There were 2 guides and one additional guide in a kayak all by his own, all for safety purposes. We had to sign an agreement and were all provided with the life jackets, paddles and helmets. Later a joke by me proved to be costly and the guide got me to show them a demo by pushing me off the raft ;) As I held on to the lifeline - a thick rope tied around the raft (capacity of 9); the others were asked to get off the raft one by one and then were lifted by the guide just using the life-jackets, a demo of sorts for rescue.
Later we were taken to a slightly more active and swirling waters of the river rapid and were back to the base camp after another 15 mins of rafting through, a total of about 1.5 hours of fun (charged at Rs 600) came to an end with the sun on the horizon, we all changed and had warm cups of coffee as the sun set and then headed back home.
A great new experience for first time rafters!
Congrats Shamit. Sounds like there was lot of fun! I've a recommendation. Do try the Honnemarlu lake too. There is camping, swimming, kayaking and food involved in it! And a BIG group would be ideal! They charged 500 bucks 5 years ago. Must be about double now. But DO try it. It was so much fun, you're allowed to frolic in water for HALF a day!!!!!!! And open air-camping and night bon-fire.....
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestions Pritesh, guess it is 'Honnemardu' ... Thanks anyways!
ReplyDeleteYou can do all the lakes in Belgium and other parts of Europe in the meanwhile ;)
Nice write up Shamit, glad you guys could raft. Now move on to rafting in Seeta, Dandeli, Pune and class 5 of Ganges ;-). njoi maadi.
ReplyDeleteHey thanks Niranjan, yes gotta graduate - we were all novices so to say. Class 2 rapid is what I hear Bheemeshwari/Galibore is. Ever been to a Class 5 rapid?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a really cool river... Thanks for sharing!
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