Trek dates: 2 Sep 2007
After an unsuccessful attempt to cross the hill range at Thadakalpudi on 19th August 2007 by Sridhar and Ravi (weather not permitting), we decided to cross the hill range. Having the knowledge about the location and the transportation details, the enthusiasts included Kumar, the experienced; and Lakshman the core developer for the thadakalpudi trek. As the planning started on Friday, the team decided to have a 1 day trek on Sunday. The starting point, Thadakalpudi is known place to Ravi and Sridhar. As Ravi took care of booking the transport and planning the route, Sridhar/Kumar took care of the food and Lakshman assisting Ravi.
On Saturday, the bus was starting from BHEL and Ravi, Kumar and Lakshman decided to borad the bus at KPHB where as Sridhar decided to board the same at SR Nagar. The scheduled deparature of the bus from KPHB is at 20:05 hrs and 20:30 from SR Nagar. Ravi, Lakshman and Kumar had dinner together and ready to board the Auto to KPHB only to realise that last minute shopping needs to be done by Ravi for the fruits. As Ravi and Lakshman grabbed the fruits all three took a speed Auto to KPHB. In the mean time, Sridhar reached SR Nagar by 20:05 and trying to contact Kumar for the status of the bus. Kumar responded that they just reached KPHB and the bus is yet to arrive. Sridhar made couple of friends in SR Nagar trying to find the return journey details. The best alternative is to reach Kothagudem and then try for a bus back to Hyderabad: alternatively if the team is near Yellandu, reach Warangal and then to Hyderabad.
Finally the long awatited Super Luxury bus to Bhadrachalam (via Kothagudem) reached at 20:45 hrs much to the relief of the team waiting at KPHB. As soon as the bus strolled out of KPHB bus stand, Kumar communicated to Sridhar who was delighted by the call. As the team enquired, they came to know that there was a huge traffic jam at JNTU which resulted in the delay of all the long distance busses. As the bus left Hyderabad at 23:00 hrs, the team was more than happy as the scheduled time of arrival at Kothagudem will be 5:00 AM which is ideal to catch the ongoing train to Thadakalpudi at 5:45. Ravi, as usually quickly went into a deep sleep setting up the alarm for 4:30 AM hoping to wake up the team and Kumar quickly ecliminitised to the new weather. Sridhar found the same music on his main road side apartment in the team sitting right behind Lakshman, but Lakshman had little tough time in getting a deserved sleep as the music was different and new to him.
As the bus was about to stroll into Kothagudem, Sridhar woke up and requested the team to get ready for alightment. Quickly the team ran to Bhadrachalam Road (Rly station of Kothagudem) which is @0.75 km away and quickly took the tickets to Thadakalpudi. As the train is yet to be bearthed (the train starts from Bhadrachalam Road), the train from Hyderabad had just arrived and yet to be taken off the platform before our train can be bearthed. Lakshman quickly took a cup of Tea and Ravi joined him for the same. As Sridhar spotted the train on the sleeping platform, the team ran quickly to take the seats for the 20 minute journey. Kumar and Lakshman completed the freshup even before the train reached the platform. The train started its stride at 6:00 AM from Bhadrachalam Road.
After reaching Thadakalpudi by 6:30, Sridhar and Ravi quickly completed the formalities and within 10 minutes they were on the mainroad of Thadakalpudi walking towards the hill range. The team talked to the villagers to find out the route for the planned trek. The guidance from the villagers was “just follow this path”, the team started walking. The route is full of greenary and after walking a few meters, there were deviations; decisions were made to move left and right. Sridhar in his usual style asked the memebers which way to move and got them say that they must move in the direction of the nearby hill. Rains over the last two days made the route muddy and slurry. After 1.5 hrs of walk, the team were looking at a hill, which they need to cross to start the trek. Looking at the weather and terrain, they decided to climb this hill and return back. The stomach cried for breakfast at 8:30 and we had breakfast here. We also created xxx crains so that we can trace back the path. After the breakfast, and taking a closer look at the terrain, it was decided to abandon climbing the hill. The planned starting point cannot be reached as it was over the hill ahead of us. The thought of walking around the hill was also abandoned as it was very muddy and we need to make a long path. The impression was that we could end up reaching the starting point only. So we decided to start climb from a different point. Being innovative, we started walking in the direction of the path along the fields (trying to avoid the retracing). After walking a few steps through the field, the shoes were tested to the limit as the black soil was sticking. We started walking slowly and by the time, we crossed the first field, we were very tired and frustated. As we realised that we took too many turns towards the hill and one of the paths will be in sight quickly. The fields were fenced and then we realised that we were in a maze. We started walking through the fields in the direction of another hill (towards west). The maze was never ending and we were getting tired. suddenly we found an old man in the fields. The prior knoledge of Sridhar and Ravi prompted us to ask the old man the direction for the WaterFall, a known local spot for villagers. The old man has shown us a rock formation on the hill and asked us to move in the direction.
The old man was kind enough to direct us towards a “Machan” where another person was sitting and he will guide us towards the water fall. As we could see the “Machan”, we started walking with little more confidence and enthusiasm. The old man was thanked (with a tip). As we reached the “Machan”, we met “Trailer Ramadasu” who showed us a jungle track to move ahead. We spent a few minutes here enjoying the view from the “Machan”. This machan was erected as this being the last field of the village and being close to the hill, the monkeys, come here to pluck/eat the cotton seeds. Thanking Ramadasu, we walked through the bushes. Though the villagers were confident about the route, we were checking our way at each cross paths. We kept cairns and walked towards the hill by making way through the shruby bamboo grass. Couple of approaches towards the hill were unsuccessful and we had to traceback and walk along the hill side till we reached a small stream. Now we had a little break and quickly started walking up the stream. The terrain was just rocks and the water flowing fluently. We hopped over the rocks only to find Kumar and Lakshman were getting tired quickly. At 13:00 hrs, we decided to have our lunch but the sight of the top of the hill, motivated Ravi and Sridhar to jump a few more rocks to reach the top. As Sridhar and Ravi travelled for @15 mins, the path seemed to be never ending and they returned back to have lunch with the team.
After a well deserved bath, we had lunch and started walking down. The pace was very good and we reached the entry point to the stream within 1 hr. Surprisingly, it took us more than 2 1/2 hrs to climb this part. We retraced the path and reached back the “Machan” and talked to Ramadasu to find the way back. As we were talking to Ramadasu, he has mentioned that walking in the field is not acceptable and it will be difficult when the manuring of the fields is done. He almost warned us and suggested to walk away from the fields. We took his help in finding the route and walked away from the fields. Now, to reach Thadakalpudi from here just took 1/2 an hour. But the onward journey to reach the Machan took us nearly 3 hrs (including the break for breakfast). As we reached Thadakalpudi, we found out that the train is 1 hr away from reaching us. As Ravi, Kumar and Lakshman took some deserved rest, Sridhar was exploiting the terrain for the next trek. As the train reached Thadakalpudi by 17:45 hrs (15 mts behind schedule), we reached Kothagudem, followed the tradition of watching a movie; Yamadonga this time and started by 22:30 to reach back Hyderabad.
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