The Journey into Amazing Caves...

 

 In September 2011 I made a 1day trip to the Charmadi Grasslands with my group through a hard bike ride. Throughout our journey went through rolling hills and forest areas for the last few minutes in tough driving in rough boulder mud road, by 10AM we reached to the famous Kala Bhairaveshwara temple which built during Chola period we found a safe spot to park our bikes near the temple.  

 

It was a grassy hill ranges covered this small village and it was my second visit to this village. Last time I had hike to Karadibetta track from this place and this time I planed to explore few new places on the same track. Due to lack of information we decided to find some resourceful person about this land and finally by luck & god's grace we were able to get one tribal very well known person from this village. And the interesting thing was that only he knew about the Ballalana Cave.

 

Around a short walk form the base we reached 'Madle Marada Kambayi' a small open view point with a 100 years old tree. We enjoyed the fantastic panorama of the mountains deep valleys and magnificent view from that. We took a long ramble in the hills on next 45 minutes and reached to Katimettida Kallu a wide rocky grassland area. Like myth says still we can seen few steps of Bison on hard rock. We had spent some time on that rock & filled some water near by the stream and had little snacks to increase our energy level.

 

One of the greatest joys in the life of a backpacker is to walk along a ridge line. That line that marks the very top of the mountains where you can climb no more and you get to enjoy the thousands of feet of space below. It is to experience the world from the top, to truly bask in the adventure of your life, this is what it is all about, and for me perhaps the greatest part of what we did.

 

Throughout the last section, we have been blessed to walk along some of the best most unseen grasslands, and certainly most rugged ridge lines. We passed a variety of Biodiversity rich Shola-grasslands, the surrounding mountains form a micro climate that all made a very nice walk…The attraction of these mountains cannot be expressed in words. Be it trekking in the Shola forests, climbing those beautiful hillocks, crossing numerous streams or simply roaming the countryside and solely revel in nature's beauty.

 

The hike was delightful with varieties of flowers in bloom. There also many brightly colored insects in the forest, such as turquoise and colorful dragonflies as well as a number of species of large, unusually shaped and colored beetles. It’s also home to many wild and endangered species of animals and varieties birds rarely found elsewhere. After a long walk inside the canopy of grass we reached the edge of the Grassland and few minutes downer walk we saw some ruined existence of houses and forts which belongs to the Ballalaraya.

 

Thick fog covered the whole area and all turned into more dramatic beauty on a span of time. Finally we made successful to find 3 beautiful unbeknown caves in the edge of the the rocky cliff. We had a beautiful vista from the top of the cave which was greatly soothing and gives a peaceful mood. It made us to forget all our worldly worries.

To be continueed...