Memory of an old trek to Yedakumeri...

I had written this travelogue about my trek to Yedakumeri .. the raiway track trek between Sakleshpura and Subramanya, which passes through a lot of tunnels and bridges. Thought of posting it now. Found some photos also in the mailbox somewhere.

This is the Donigal station from where our trek started. More of it later. Let me begin my narration first.. Thanks to Aravind for the photos...

We (Myself, my friend Aravind and his colleague Ananth) started from B'lore on 13-aug-2004, a Friday, to take advantage of the weekend. We boarded a KSRTC bus to Mangalore at 10:30pm from Majestic and landed in Donigal, in the midst of the picturesque Western Ghats at 4AM. We killed time till 5:30AM in the hotel (Buses/trucks plying between B'lore and M'lore stop there for a short break. So the hotel is open 24hrs. a day!!. The photo again...

We started walking towards Donigal Railway station which was 5 Km from the place where we had tea. Later on we found we could have skipped this walk had we dropped ourselves off at Marenahalli instead of Donigal. Anyways, it was fun to walk in the wee hours in slight drizzles. We reached Donigal Railway station at about 6:25AM. It was a very old railway station, abandoned long back. There is a Morse Code machine in the station master's room, a waiting
room, with a couple of broken benches and a signal room, which we didn't explore. We finished our nature calls and had a light breakfast - Chapathi + Jam that Aravind had brought. We started our trek (violating an order on a board in the station)

The Railway track was, for sure, deserted for a long long time as we could see the rusted iron at most of the places and the mud completely covering the tracks at other places. But the pieces of white rock that were kept to support the rails were still intact. There was no other go but to step over them, hurting out feet in the process. This was another of those experiences, which is unique to this trek.

Some of it in the next posting... This was just part 1....