Scuba Diving!!

Netrani is a tiny Island of India located in Arabian Sea, off the coast of Karnataka. It is also known as Pigeon Island. The top view of the Island appears like a Heart shaped besides Pigeon! So the name Pigeon Island. Netrani Island is one of the best destination in India for Scuba Diving specially for beginners.

Scuba diving was on the cards from long time and after many delays and postponement the plan was finalized "Trip to Netrani Island with GHAC". We were a group of Nine and had to board the bus to Murudeshwar from Hyderabad on Friday. The weather now a days is unpredictable!! It was in mid of May.. the sun was shining brighter in the morning and it started raining cats and dogs in noon!! Seven members have boarded the bus which is ready to departure and two of them are stuck in traffic. The unpredicted rain and the Hyderabad Metro happily blocked the roads. The bus departed from the station... after making several requests the driver agreed to wait for Ten more minutes and finally both of them are here.. tension relieved!!

Next day it was Five in the morning and here we are at Murudeshwar! The Dive timings were scheduled on Sunday, so we have entire Saturday to spend and visit half moon and paradise beach and trek all along Om beach at Gokarna. The drive to Gokarna is Scenic.. with mountains and Western ghats on one side and Arabian Sea on other side. Om beach is less crowded and it has a couple of water sports as well. The beach  is unspoiled and has clear water which is beautifully surrounded by the palm trees. Some fun time at beach and than a water sports and finally a boat ride to Half moon and Paradise Beach. Both the beaches are awesome!! and it has an amazing place for camping. One more place added to the list. Will be camping here one day for sure.. Till the time we reached back it was getting dark and we started back to Murudeshwara.

Gokarna

Sunday woke up at Five in the morning and went for a walk along beach. The early morning view was beautiful and amazing... waves cleansing away the foot and the refreshing cool breeze!! Back to hotel and we are all set for the Dive. Picked up the diving equipment and gear. Loaded it in a vehicle and started for training session in pool. After getting acquainted with the equipment underwater, we started towards the Island. Its one hour journey in boat to reach Island. As we kept moving the color of the water is also changing, now it's blue all around!! And so the under water visibility also increased.

 

Panoramic view of Netrani Island

And there we see the Island... Netrani Island. What an amazing view it was!! A tiny piece of land in the midst of the blue ocean! The water was Cristal clear at the Island and were able to see the playful and colorful fishes on the surface water.

Fishes on the Surface water

We put on the jacket, oxygen cylinder, mask and one fall into the water and here... we are into a different world!! Underwater. The creatures with fins and gills moving all around spending free and independent life. No aquarium, no tanks just spacious and never ending place with full of colorful life moving all around.

Sighted a hell lot of colorful fishes and little corals. What not... Experienced many joys, the feeling of weightlessness and the beautiful and colourful sight of under water. The journey beneath the waves is worth and is exciting and adventure.

It was amazing to be under water. An incredible and mesmerizing experience. Everyone had a wonderful time and enjoyed to the core.

Finally reached back to hotel and took a jeep to reach Murudeshwar and boarded the bus back to Hyderabad.

Exploration Trek to Kondaveedu fort and Sunrise at SuryaLanka

Kondaveedu Fort - 'The Hill Fortress' is located in Kondaveedu Village, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh. The Fort was built and was ruled by the king of Reddy dynasty in fourteenth Century and later on it was concurred and was ruled by many kings starting from Vijayanagara Kings, Qutub Shahis from The Sultans of Golkonda have fought for this fort and after that it went into the hands of French and finally The Britishers.

Apart from the main fort, there are two other forts nearby. All the three forts are now in ruins. It is said that treasure hunters are the main reason to vandalize this fort. The fables of abundant wealth buried underneath continues to draw the attention of the treasure hunters and desecrating the few remains of the fort by digging away. Though we have not noticed any such miscreants all through our trek. Not sure if the miscreants have found some treasure here or not but the fort is completely ruined. There's only a small portion of the fort left out by which one can at-least recognize that its a fort.

Kondaveedu Fort

We have planned to hike this Kondaveedu Fort up the hill. Seven others have joined along with me and laxmi. We have planned this trip well in advance and booked the train tickets that were in waiting list. Finally till the day before the journey the tickets were not confirmed and we were pure unlucky in the Tatkal scheme by IRCTC and thanks for the super slow server of Indian Railways!! Since it's just a Six hours journey from Hyderabad to Guntur we have decided to travel with general ticket. So, the task is to get hold the seats for all the nine people. My self and Vishnu got into the running train on the platform and yes!! we blocked the seats for all nine. Task accomplished!! Luckily the train got delayed by an hour.. lucky coz the main person in the group, our celebrity 'Sreenath' was stuck in traffic. (Celebrity coz he look alike Virat Kohli). Our first travel in general compartment and this is what I noticed... On one side the passengers were waiting to grab the seats and other side the vendors selling the stuff... people climbing up and making the luggage place as their berth!! Train started.. but Virat is still not here!! All of us got settled... and here... got a call from Virat saying that he boarded the train and he is in other compartment, will join us in next station. Pheww!! Journey started with intro followed by a fun games and trying to bluff each other. Our destination was still two hours away, so we decided to take a power nap for couple of hours. and here we are in Guntur... that was a different experience, traveling in General. Hired a private vehicle and started the journey towards the Fort. Enroute had a delicious south Indian breakfast. And here we reached Kondaveedu Fort base!!

The fort is located 1700 feet above sea level, which has steps that takes you to the peak. What's so adventures if we take the steps to climb all over the top? So we decided to explore the place and started hiking from a different route. We have chosen a pretty long route to reach the peak... the group was full on energetic!! none of them got tired till we reach the top. Hike includes lot of scrambling and little climbing. Climbing was little challenging as there were no proper handholds.. we have used a little bit of palming technique to climb up. One by one started climbing and our cameraman 'Saiteja' was busy clicking!!

Hiking

In the midst of hike we found a huge tree with vines!! and guess what.. Its time for some Tarzan swing!! We spent some fun time in swinging and relaxed and continued the hike. After five hours of hiking.... there we are on the top of the fort!! The view from the top was amazing!! a small village at the base surrounded by fields and the blue sky!! It was very hot though. Relaxed for sometime and clicked few group pictures directed by Aparna and stared descending.

Tarzan Swing

Descending was the toughest part though we have chosen a short route, coz it was already noon and the sun shines hot. Rocks burning like hot pan!! and the worst part is descending in hot sun without having a drop of water. Pranav, Akhilesh and Abhilash descended little fast and reached base and were waiting for us at the home at the base village, where we kept all our backpacks. Here ends the hike to Kondaveedu fort and started the journey towards Surya Lanka Beach.

Suryalanka is one amongst many beaches... but with less crowd and less polluted beach. The specialty of Surya Lanka is it's an 'estuary beach' a place where fresh water from the river flows into the ocean and blend with salt water. It was almost dark when we reached the beach... first we setup the tents for camping just few steps away from the beach and ordered dinner at the local hotel and went on for a walk in the beach. Spent some good time at the beach chatting about haunted stories, movies and all... by the time our dinner was ready!! Steamed rice with fish curry was the menu for dinner! and the moment after we had dinner Akhilesh started dozing!! and he is the one in whole group who was sleeping most of the time. We all wanted a good, long sleep now...so that we can wake up early to see the sunrise.

Next day early morning five.. it was little cloudy. Behind the clouds is the sun... Hiding! Raising slow.. we had to wait for long time, but the sun rise was not that good as expected nevertheless we enjoyed the view.

Sun Rise

Early morning at the beach...sunrise time and who doesn't want to get into water..! after spending some good time in the beach we started walking towards the place where river water flows into the sea. It was amazing to see sweet water from river mixes with salt water and at the same time i pity... many people on earth lack drinking water and here it is wasted. And buried with sea water.

It was Eleven O'clock when we reached back to the camping place after spending some good time at the estuary. We still have enough time to spend, so we decided to visit Amaravati Temple near Guntur. Goodbye to Suryalanka!! Came back to Bapatla and started searching for hotels... and Its being a weekend, most of the hotels are filled up... and it was too late till the time we checked-In at a hotel. At last we have to cancel the plan to Amaravati and passed the time with some music and thanks to Abhilash for entertaining us with his mixed and funny facial expressions!!

A wonderful weekend spent with incredible group hiking all along the fort and beach!! Everyone got acquainted very much and decided not to sleep in the return journey as this will be the last night we gonna spend together. Eleven O'clock in the night we boarded the train and all our seats were not allocated in  serial numbers... tried swapping seats with other passengers.. but no luck, we just have to go and have a good night sleep!

Back to Hyderabad on Monday morning and ready for corporate slavery!!

Railway track trek to Dudhsagar Waterfalls

Dudhsagar is  one of the most scenic and beautiful waterfall in India and is listed as fifth tallest waterfall in India. The most spectacular natural phenomena, located on the border of Goa and Karnataka states.The cascading of water in large volume from the top of a hill appears like a milky flow!!

So the group of 20 GHACians started off with the Monsoon Trek on railway track passing through the tunnels and heading towards the beautiful Waterfalls. My self and Yogi being the host of the trek and were leading the group.The journey started with only few confirmed train tickets in hand and rest in RAC. So the adventure and the 'No comfort' travel started rite from the beginning! Thanks for the awesome group for 'No complaints' in regards to travel :) but luck favoured us... the other group from GHAC were traveling in the same train to Jog falls and were having few extra reserved tickets :) So, most of them got the berths and had a tight sleep night journey. Thanks for our sleeping bags which helped us in all the time when we don't have reserved train tickets ;)

Saturday:

The initial plan was to start the trek from Castle Rock station and reach Dudhsagar. It was a 14 Kilometer trek on railway track passing through the tunnels, but by the time we reach the waterfalls it will be almost dark and we cannot have the proper view of falls and most importantly we don't get the space for camping... and being a weekend this route will be too crowded. So, we decided to go little further and start the trek from Caranzol. From Caranzol the distance is around 5-6 Kilometer. We started the trek passing through the tunnels and mountains of western ghats. We entered the first tunnel...it was pitch-dark and we dint switched ON the torch light, just to feel a little adventure!! It's being a monsoon season, it was drizzling from top of the tunnels and the moment we came out of the tunnel we could see many tiny falls from the top of the mountains and of-course plenty of greenery all around!!
 

Tunnel

There were couple of falls on the way where we spent some time. Everyone in the group were amused and were rejoicing a fun filled trek. In the middest of the trek we saw a couple of goods transmitting trains with people on board. The guard allowed few people to board the train. We too had a chance, but we were happy to trek all along and reach the falls and more than that we do not want to miss the beauty of the nature and of-course the Adventure!!
 

View on the way

The views during the trek were immensely mesmerizing!! Deep valleys, water falls, railway track, tunnels and greenery all around... one must visit this place at least once in a life time!! The nature lovers were busy capturing the beauty of nature through lens and others were throughly enjoying the mother nature and of-course there were also few Kodak moments of the group!! Soon we reached the Dudhsagar station and we could here the sound of gushing water falls cascading down!! It was just a Ten minutes walk from Dudhsagar station to the actual water fall... and here we saw the spectacular natural falls... water plummets from hundreds of feet in cascade of large volume and creating a mist all around!! The cascading water appear like a milky flow!!

Water falls

The moment our eyes captured the spectacular falls we lost ourselves in the beauty of nature and were standing still and forgot about the world outside and were thoroughly, deeply rejoicing the waterfalls!! Living the life to the fullest!! After spending a good time at the falls we started pitching the tents for camping quite opposite to the water falls, and just beside the railway track... must be 4-5 steps beside the track not more than that. There is a small canteen at the water falls, where you have enough space for 15 people to accommodate under a shed. After pitching the tents we again went near to the falls... this time we descended little down from where we can feel the gushing water on our feet!! It was getting dark and we all moved to our camping place for dinner. We have enough packed food... a lot of varieties on the menu!! Dinner followed by lot of fun filled activities! It was a different experience to spend the night in the tent near to the falls and the track, lisitening to gushing sound of the water and shuddering sound of a train and feeling the vibrations on the ground!!

Pitching Tents

Next day on Sunday we woke up at Five in the morning and decided to go little further, cross two more tunnels to view the complete water falls from a distance. After crossing two tunnels from the camping place not more than a kilometer, just turn around and look back.... there you can see beautiful view of dudhsagar with a railway bridge passing along!! Words are not enough to describe the beauty!! Picture says it all! 

View of Dudhsagar

One more View

We spent enough time over there and whilst back to the camping place we saw a small water fall, where the water is crystal clear.

We have to catch the train at Nine in the morning from Dudhsagar station, the interesting part is there is no proper stop at this station, but the train stops here for signal not more than for Two minutes... with not much difficulty we have boarded the train and started towards Londa Junction from where we have to board another train to Hyderabad. After getting down at Londa we have enough time for the next train to Hyderabad so, we all had a leisure lunch at near by hotel and yeah... today is the birthday of 'Haripriya' one of the member in our group! So.. cake cutting, group pictures and some fun time and now its time for boarding the train to Hyderabad. The moment we boarded the train it started raining cats and dogs!! We have spent some good time in journey and thanks to the wonderful group for all the fun in the return journey.

Back to Hyderabad on Monday morning... toughest time starts now!! Office...

Finally the group