After a long traveling we occupied a nice place to stay for a night at Gokak. Gokak is one of the most important cultural heritage site as well as one of the places with huge waterfalls and lots of industries. We slept early so we could wake up early and land for Gokak waterfalls which was just 20 minutes journey from the Gokak city unfortunately we had 1 hour late because of our cab driver.
After a smooth nap having complementary continental breakfast, we headed out to Gokak falls. A small journey from hotel we parked our vehicle in front of the 125years old Textile mill and stepped down to visit beautiful Mahalingeswara (Tateshwara) temple. The temples built in the Later Chalukyas style of architecture situated at on the south side of the falls and It faces north an unusual orientation for Shiva temples.
It was very well maintained and the gorgeous waterfalls presence in-front of temple was adorning its premise. It has a sanctuary with a Mandapa the outer walls of the closed hall are from recent times. After rounding the temple complex we climbed down for few steps and reached right side corner of the upper cascade, which situated next to the temple. The natural cataracts are quite beautiful, plunging with white foam over dark rock into iridescent yellow pools. Here River hurtles along through a narrow wide rock gorge overhung into the beautiful ragged valley.
I saw a beautiful view from the edge of the cascade and also I saw an old power generation stattion here electricity was generated for the first time in the country in 1887 were exactly bottom side from the cliffs. Later we crossed a very old (201 meters) hanging bridge It was a fantastic experience on standing middle of the bridge and having a full glimpse of the dazzling Ghataprabha river which takes 170 feet leap over a sandstone cliff in a picturesque george with a thunderous sound was so enjoyable to spend some time on that.
We’d crossed the river and found few older temples Datttreya and Shiva temple. The outer temple wall was not in good condition but somewhere inside was filled with modern paints hastily but still I was able to take some good photos of that. After visiting the temple I turned to waterfalls and joined my team, we had better view of the waterfalls from this part. We'd continued our risky climb down further until we got yet another interesting view of cascade.
We passed by a narrowing of the gorge where the creek was louder and interesting red rock formations could be seen below the trail. Obviously it was difficult to photograph very closer to the cascade, but still we were amazed that such scenery could exists in-front of us so we didn’t hesitate to take photos instead of drizzling rain and mist.
However, the scramble to the base of the falls was a bit steep so we couldn’t able to reach bottom but somewhere got better views of the cascade and valleys. After lot of enjoyment we headed back to starting point and had visit textile mill and our lady teammates had purchase enough cloths on a discount price.
Gokak falls the area features colorful red hillsides with beautiful waterfalls its location amazing to see such a collection of people, buildings, temples, rivers, etc. here. It’s nice to be in such a beautiful place and we had spent a great joyful time in this location still, the experience of feeling the power of the falls from the overlooks as well as getting nervously close to the rush of water without railings sure made us crazy…
