With the inspiration of Narasimha Parvatha Travelog, I thought of writing travelogs for the remaining group trips and here is an attempt to recall my memories from our Jog Falls & Karwar (Uttara Kannada) trip done in 2007.
We thought of planning a trip for the long weekend of 2007 New Year. Since it was my last trip as a bachelor, I was very keen to make it a memorable trip. All participants have agreed on spending 4 full days and I have started planning the trip.
Starting from our Goa trip in 2005, I have developed special interest on waterfalls. While gathering some information about famous waterfalls in India, I learned about Jog Falls, which is the highest waterfall in India with a height of 829 feet. It is also one of the four best waterfalls in India appeared on special postal stamps released by Indian Govt (other three being Athirapally Falls from Kerala, Kempty Falls from Uttaranchal and Kakolat Falls from Bihar) - http://www.indiapost.gov.in/images/Stamp-Rel112.gif. I immediately started gathering more information on Jog Falls.
While searching the surroundings of Jog falls, I came to know that there are many wonderful waterfalls in Uttara Kannada district and most of them are little close to Jog Falls (which is located in Shimoga district). I thought of proposing a waterfall oriented trip by including all the important waterfalls from Uttara Kannada along with Jog Falls. However, we felt it would be boring to just keep visiting waterfalls for 4 continuous days and decided to mix it with other important places around. We thought including a beach destination would add more spice to the trip as it was New Year weekend. Deepak & others proposed that we should spend Dec 31st night in a beach destination and visit all waterfalls before that! I started working towards identifying the best beach destinations around Jog Falls and then Karwar came into the picture. Karwar is a beach town and headquarters of Uttara Kannada district. There were two reasons to include Karwar in the trip. First one being the Devbagh Beach, a wonderful beach island near Karwar which also offers Snorkeling. Second reason is the Om Beach near Gokarna (50 Kms from Karwar) which is one of the best beaches in India with breathtaking landscape.
Though Jog Falls is close to the town of Sagar in Shimoga, I preferred Sirsi as our base station for the first two days to visit all waterfalls. Jog Falls is 65 Kms from Sirsi, but all other waterfalls we shortlisted are within the range of 30-50 Kms from Sirsi. Karwar was identified as the base for remaining two days of the trip. Apart from the regular participants (Deepak, Radhani & Chaitu & Rakesh), we also received confirmation from Ravi (our college mate & my close friend) & Ratnakar (Rakesh’s classmate and our close friend as well). Santosh missed this trip.
