Top Station Trek

 It had started to rain when I left home at 5Pm on October 6th. My cousin and I had registered for the trek. Both of us left my home in taxi to reach BMC Indria Nagar by 5:50PM. We started in the Tempo arranged for the journey by 6:50PM. By then the rain had started pouring heavily. There was one more pickup at Silkboard Junction. By the time we left Bangalore city limits, it was passed 9PM - due to heavy rain the and terrible traffic inside Bangalore city.

After a long drive, we reached kurangani by 6AM. Its a small village adjacent to western ghats mountain in Bodi district, Tamil Nadu. The village has a very small population and people were awake by 6:30 in the streets. A small place was arranged to get fresh after which we went to have breakfast in a small hotel at the village. By 7:45 am we were ready with our packed lunch to start the trek.

It was a group of 8 people and 2 guides for this trek. We walked for 5 mins to reach a place where we had a short briefing and introduction session. After the briefing we started the trek to reach a forest check-post in few mins. We has to enter name and contact details of all the participants.

It was 8AM when we started from there. It started with a small ascent and covered with trees. The trek path was a mix of rocks and sand which is well settled and firm soil. It was not straight and had turns as the trail leads with the great view of mountains on the sides.

The Mountains

It was quite sunny by then in that place but the trek route was under nice shade. We reached the first water point which is a nice waterfall by 8:40 where we took the first break.
There is a small rocky slope which we climbed to get a good view of the fall .

Waterfall

We started again after a break of 15 mins.
Lots of butterflies and dragon flies were seen around.

The Flies Around

Lots of flowers were seen as well. There were stretches where the morning glory were grown wild and beautiful.

Blue flowers grown wild

By 9:25AM were crossed another water stream!! There were many coffee plants seen which were not cultivated but grown wild. The local villagers plucks these coffee seeds, dry them and sell in the local market as well.

Coffee Beans

By 10AM we reached a small house where we took another break of 10 minutes.

Coffee beans for sun drying in front of the house

The next stop was expected to be Center station which is kind of midpoint to Top Station. The trek was under tree cover till just before reaching center station. Then we exit out into a beautiful hill top with great view of the mountains surrounding.

View of mountain before reaching center station

We enjoyed the view for a short while and then proceed towards center station, where we had our packed lunch. The Center station is a small village. After the lunch, i got few very good shots of butterflies and couple of birds.

Butterfly

Butterfly

The entire trek had lots of birds but those were very very sensitive. The slight sound of people were driving them away. This most common in that area was the Red-Whiskered Bulbul.

BulBul

The trek route was bit more tougher after the center station point. The route was bit steep and uneven ground. The tree cover is lost and we were in the open sun. It was bright and sunny for almost an hour after we started from Center Station. Then is started to get more better and we started seeing misty clouds at a distance.

The initial path when were were climbing from Center Station we saw lots of "kurinji flower". This blooms the complete western ghats once in 12 years and every year there will be a very less flowers seen in patches. Also the size of flowers will be bigger on every 12th year.

kurinji flower - Next full Bloom in 2018

I was able to shoot a white-eyes as well on the path. Though i had to struggle to get a shot as they were very sensitive.

White Eyes

Soon we started seeing more villagers on the narrow path. We were reaching closer to Top Station. The last 1KMs had lots of huts and villagers living on the trek path.
Finally after a nice trek of ~9KMs we reached Top Station. We took a break at a tea shop and had snacks tea. It had already become very misty by then.
I had lots of Pineapples which are sold at on the road leading to the view point along with other fruits.  It was very misty, but still as a checklist item we entered the view point and came back after seeing the misty view.

We started out unending 2KMs walk to our camp site - every kilometer we were told only 200mtrs more :D ...but finally after walking through the beautiful tea garden we reached the camp sight.

Tea Garden View

We reached the misty and cold camp sight by 4:50PM. It was supposed to have a great view of the mountains but for the time we could see only mist. There were tents setup already for us. It was a nice environment. We got some hot tea and relaxed in the camp. Few of the guys went into the tent for rest after the tiring trek for the day.
The guides started the camp fire preparation by 7PM and we had a nice warm fire for dinner. Thanks to the clouds for not pouring heavy rain on us!!!

The fire

The dinner was arranged a local helper brought at the camp sight. After the tasty dinner and reaxing beside the fire, we all called the day off planning to wakup by 6AM.

The close of day!!!!

I wokeup by 6AM on Sunday morning after a very satisfying sleep. The clear weather and dawn sky gave great energy along with the chirping birds.

Morning View from the tent

The early morning view was very very refreshing to start the day.

 

We got the breakfast served at the camp sight.  The food was good. After freshup we started the trek by 8AM. The weather was just prefect and there was a minor drizzle when we started. Not strong for us to take our raincoats out. The morning view of the tea garden and the mountain was just perfect. 

The return trek route was the same for the initial 2 KMs. Then we deviated out into a different trail which turned out to be much better. It was a climb down via the open mountain but still each instance we feel as-if we are on top of the mountain. It was much more scenic than the previous route. This route might not be possible if it was raining, also this was slightly tougher as it has more uneven ground in sections. 

And there were long grass on the route as well!!!

Finally after a nice trek with multiple breaks we reached the a village named "Muduvakudi".
It took a bit more time then expected as there was a minor leg twist for one participant. Hence we did not trek down from this village for the final 3km instead we hired a jeep. The local guide ran down to Kurangani to call the jeep for us.

We spend about an hour in this village . This was a very unique village as told by our guide. Its a very old adivasi settlement . Its a very close community and even the language seems to be different from other South Indian language - Interesting !!!

Finally after a very nice trek we reached Kurangani by 2:50PM and started our return journey after a short break. We took break for Lunch and Dinner on the way and reached bangalore by around midnight 12:30.


Credits:
Thanks to Bangalore Mountaineering Club  for organizing this trek.
Thanks to Shamanth  from BMC for Guiding and Supporting everyone in the group
Thanks to Mari - Very nice and humble person being our Local guide for this trek.