Murdeshwar- Gokarna - Jog Falls Bike Trip

It was mid of july when I suddenly thought of exploring coastal Karnataka. Travelling is something that drives me crazy and that's the only normal thing I do in my life :). It all started with a small motivation to all my friends and we were all set to travel 1300 km in 3 days on bike. Karnataka's coast is something that is unexplored and a paradise if explored. We planned to travel during august, to use the holidays of that time, and to our surprise the plan looked so luring that friends from Delhi, Tirichy, Chennai and even from Gwalior joined us. We were finally 16 people to travel along, and even better thing was that none of us owned a bike back then. The hunt for bikes on rent started and we finally found 3 apaches, 1 fazer and 2 thunderbirds for us. We also hired a cab for the rest 4 non-bikers :(, which actually turned out a pretty good decision by the end.

All Set to roll.........

Day 1:- We left pretty early at 4 am with a thought of reaching Murdeswar by evening, but God had other plans for us. Driving on NH4 till tumkur is like driving a wave runner, none of us were below 100 and we reached there by 5:45 am. Had a cup of tea and went ahead towards Tiptur. Here is where things started to get dirty. Two of the riders slipped namely Kamal and Raj as Kamal had no idea how to swing the bike :p, luckily they were not at all seriously injured but hats off to Raj who was injured but still covered the whole distance to and fro on bike. Another mishap, and an expected one of bike puncture happened about 20 km before tiptur in a No man's land. Had to take a mechanic from tiptur all the way down to the place. These things hurt our plans, as we were also not able to find any place for medical dressing of the injuries to Raj and Kamal. Somehow, we started from Tiptur by 11:30 and reached Tarikere by 1:30. We had a pretty bad lunch there, and to the worst it had rained at that time. The road was pretty slippery now and it was hard to drive above 70. Though we continued on NH 206, but from the Paper town before Bhadravathi we took a left turn and followed SH57 and turned towards Shettihalli Wildlife Sanctuary. We had planned to travel this same road towards Murdeshwar via Kundapura as it was more scenic. As we entered the jungles, the road got thinner and thinner, somewhere there was not even a road, and it was continuously raining. We had no idea about these conditions, and we went ahead on the same road along the jungles, pretty few vehicles crossed us, and it was always a lonely road where only our 6 bikes were roaring along.
                  By evening 5, we were all completely wet,but the scenic landscapes always took away our minds from this fact. At this point we were around 180 km from Murdeshwar.

It had started to get dark now, with continuous rain making our clothes a water sack and a road which was hard to find, we were driving along singing songs loudly. We were not able to spot any animals though, apart from few monkeys and usual dogs and cows. The road and the conditions had reduced our speed considerably and we were not able to maintain an average of even 40. By night 10'0 clock we reached Siddapura, and were still 90 km from Murdeshwar. All the small waterfalls which passed our way during the night were just being cursed upon, as we were just able to hear there voices in the jungle and not at all able to even see them. We knew that we will be joining the NH66 in another 30 km so were expecting a better road. The road from Siddapura to kundapura is infact nice. When we touched the highway we realized that God is mocking us in a lot many ways now. The road is horrible with holes pretty deep. As it was raining so all of them were even filled with water and the depth was a mystery. Somehow we reached Murdeshwar at 1:00 in the night, and I was being cursed for choosing the awful road. We slept without dinner that night, with just a couple of whiskey pegs each person. The 21 hour long drive was over but a lot was left to follow.

Day 2:- The day started pretty late for most of us, but I had to wake up to gp and pick up pankaj who came to murdeshwar by bus to join us. Luckily he escaped the long journey. Now was the time when people had lost hope about travelling anymore, so I went out brought breakfast for people, then I and amar bought rain coats for everyone. I think, the excitement of wearing a rain coat and travelling made every one energetic again. It was continuously raining in Murdeshwar, and by 1:00 we left the dormitory where we stayed at night. We went to the beach and the temple, had a good time there. We were planning to got to Nethrani island, but the weather was too bad for any such thing. We had a pretty nice lunch at Naveen beach retaurant, awesome food, in an awesome location and at pretty cheap rates. 

Black magic of raj

Sunil Shetty (Ashish)

Naveen veach restaurant

 By the evening we had left for Gokarna 80 km, again the same highway which was pretty bad till Honavar, but got better as we closed in to Gokarna. We missed out on the dates to book any resort in Kudle or Om beach, but it's a must be place to live in a resort, and those all are pretty cheap too. We stayed in a decent hotel for the night and had plans to leave early morning for the Om beach.

Day 3:- We left for Om beach pretty early and reached there by 8 in the morning. The road to Om beach is pretty scenic.

On the way to Om beach

It was pretty empty, and we started off with exploring the rocky beach. Then we moved our attention to beers from namaste cafe and straight away jumped into the water. 

Shampoo in sea water :)

The beer cost in Namaste cafe was 130, but with God's grace raj and kamal had 2 beers at the same price. Though the place is totally worth 130 too. We came back to our hotel decent, had lunch and left for Jog falls. It was about 110 km from Gokarna, and we reached there by 4 in the evening. Jog falls was at it's full lush at that time and with the rain coming, it added a bit more spice to the aroma. We reached the the drop point of one of the main streams of the falls, but the place was very risky, as the rocks were very slippery, and to our miseries Mr Jageera added another one. When we reached the base of the falls we all went together helping the one's coming behind us as the way to the base was pretty risky. In fact a guy got a shoulder fracture in front of us, but we did continue. After coming back to the base of the 1298 stairs to climb up, we realized that dear Mr jageera was missing. We were all worried as it was already dark, and no way of tracking a person there. I and ravi went back to look for him, again travelled the risky patch, and came back to realize that he is still missing. We decided to climb up and check upstairs, as it was totally dark by that time. To climb up 1298 stairs with the out bursting tummies of few of our highly fit members, was a big task. Phewww we reached, and there we saw jageera laughing. At once we got happy to see him, and then gave him a abuse bath for not being with everyone. Things are risky in Jog falls, though we somehow managed to get the charm.

We left jog falls by 7:30 in evening, though missed out the musical fountain show held there from 7pm. We now left towards Sagar just 25km from Jog falls, and there we changed our wet clothes, and were getting ready to have our dinner, when suddenly we realized that the key to a thunderbird is missing. An hour long search went on, we even called up a guy to break the lock, but finally the key was found hiding beneath a stone where one of us had pissed :p. We stayed at shivmoga the same night and left early morning next day to reach back bangalore.

An unforgettable trip for each one of us, which taught me that I should never make plans. If God sitting above is making plans for me then why the hell should I waste my time. Hope you find this useful to help you planning in some of your trip. And of course the best dialogue from Mr. Atul Kumar, "Itni raat me, baarish me bheege hone ke baad bhi aise gaddho waali road pe hum log paagalo ki tarah chale ja rahe hain, ye ya to BEWAKOOFI hai ya CHUTIYAPA"......... :).