Trek to 3 waterfalls - Bandaje arbi, Kadamagundi, Elanneru falls

Date – 26/01/2018 and 27/01/2018

Our original plan –

Day 0 – Collect the tents and sleeping bags and catch the night bus from Majestic, Bangalore to Ujire.

Day 1 – Early morning jeep from Ujire to Bandaje gowdare mane. Get forest permission and trek to Bandaje arbi falls. Pitch the tent and stay overnight at the falls.

Day 2 – Early morning trek from the falls to Ballalarayana Durga Fort. Continue trek to Sunkasale and finish trek by early evening. Those returning to Bangalore to catch bus from Sunkasale to Horanadu, visit the temple and catch overnight bus to Bangalore. Those going to Udupi/Mangalore catch bus to Kottigehara and another bus to Mangalore.

But this is how it turned out –

Day 0 – 25/01/2018

Me, Abhi and Ajith were starting from different parts of Bangalore. So we planned to meet at Majestic by 9. We all managed to reach Majestic by 8 o clock. I had booked “KSRTC Karnataka Vaibhava” to Ujire. We had collected the tents and sleeping bags earlier in the day from Xdog trekking.

Kiran was to start from Udupi and Chandresh from Mangalore. They would come directly to Ujire.

Day 1 – 26/01/2018

Our bus reached Ujire at 5:30am. Since it was too early, we decided to get down at Dharmasthala instead of Ujire. All the rooms were booked, so we got fresh at the public toilets at Dharmasthala and had breakfast. We took another bus to Ujire and waited for Kiran and Chandresh to reach. They reached Ujire by 8:30am. We met another group of 4 trekkers and they were also going to bandaje. So we together decided to take a jeep to Bandaje from Ujire. The jeep cost us Rs. 600.

We reached gowdara mane at Bandaje at around 10am. The DRFO and the forest guard Raju were there. Due to recent forest fires and other incidents, they were not giving permission to stay at the falls. They said to trek to the falls and come back by evening 6pm. Forest permission was Rs. 200 per head.

We decided to keep most of our bags and the tents and sleeping bags at gowdara mane and come back to collect them. We decided not to take a guide since there were already many trekkers who were also going to the falls. Finally we started our trek at around 10:30 am. First part is through the forest, and then the final stretch is through the open grassland on the hill. It is a moderate trek in January end. No rain, no slippery path, no leeches. So we climbed pretty quickly and reached the falls by 12:30pm.

The water falls off a cliff. We can trek to the top of the cliff. I dont think there is a way to go to the bottom of the falls. At the top there are few good places to pitch tents and to spend time. We had our lunch (2 buns and bread and jam) at the falls which we had got packed at Ujire in the morning and stayed at the falls till 4pm. We started our trek back to gowdara mane at 4:15pm and reached there by 5:30pm.

Since we had deviated from the original plan now, we had no idea what to do next. Abhi decided that he will leave for his hometown. So he caught an auto and left for Ujire from where he will get a bus to his hometown. Rest of us were discussing about an alternate plan for dinner, stay and next day. Discussion went on till 8 o clock and it was already very dark. We now had no option but to pitch the tents outside of gowdara mane and have the dinner at his place. We decided next day we will do Kadamagundi falls (Didupe falls) and Elanneru falls and then go to horanadu for lunch. Rest of the trekkers had already pitched their tents. There were around 12 tents in total outside of gowdara mane.

Day 2 – 27/01/2018

We got up around 8 o clock to see that we were the only trekkers remaining at gowdara mane and were the last to pack our tents. We paid for the dinner and took an auto to the Bandaje main road and then caught a bus from there to Didupe. Since we wanted to take a shorter route to the falls, we decided to take an inner route through the fields and other plantations rather than walking on the road. But we got lost and a localite had to guide us till the road to didupe falls.

Just before the falls, there is a Battaru mane. Since we were yet to have breakfast, we asked them to prepare it for us. We left our bags and tents here and went to see the Kadamagundi falls (also called Didupe falls). The trek was easy and we soon reached the falls. It was 10 am, so we were the only ones at the falls. We took bath in the falls. This falls is similar to Kudlu theertha falls in Hebri. Water falls down directly from a height in a single stream. After taking bath we came back to battaru mane to have our breakfast.

After having breakfast we left for Elanneru falls which is near Samse. We started our trek at around 12. We had to walk through the forest reserve area to reach this. This was not a normal route taken by trekkers. The locals had told us about this road going through the forest reserve area. They also warned us about elephants in this area. This was a 15 km stretch that we had to cover. Again the trek was moderate and we reached the Elanneru falls by evening 3:30pm. This falls was a disappointment compared to Kadamamgundi and Bandaje falls. The locals and the close by homestays had just hyped up this place. We did not spend much time here and continued our trek to reach Samse by 5pm. We had run out of our supplies and did not have lunch in this stretch, so we were exhausted when we reached Samse. Here we had some biscuits and sweets at the stalls near the bus stand.

I had decided to go to mangalore with Kiran and Chandresh. And Ajith had to go to Horanadu to catch the Bangalore bus. The last bus from Samse to Karkala was at 4:30 pm and we had missed this bus. So we had to take a longer route to go to Mangalore. We caught a bus from Samse to Kalasa. From Kalasa, Ajith took a bus to Horanadu. Me, Kiran and Chandresh took a bus to Kottigehara. We reached Kottigehara at around 8 or 9pm. We had our dinner outside the bus stand and then caught another bus from Kottigehara to Mangalore. It was around 12:30 in the night when we reached Mangalore. Kiran had kept his activa in mangalore. Me and Kiran took the activa to go home to Udupi. I finally reached home at around 2am.

Overall it was a very good trek over 2 days. Since we did not got forest permission to stay, we had to deviate from the original plan and ended up covering 3 falls. We had covered more than three times the distance we had planned originally on foot.

Other details –

Cost – Around Rs. 2500 per head

Gowdara mane number (Kishor Gowda) – 9901939829 — can contact this number for the permission details and stay and food (dinner/breakfast) arrangement.

Forest guard Raju number – +919901346952 — can contact this number for permission details