Pegging Tent of our Own. Review on Bheemeshwari

14th December 2008, Sunday

1. Pulsar 200 - Nirmal, Raman

   
   




2. Pulsar 180 - Sterin, Sandeep

   
   




3. Pulsar 150 - Finton, Prinson

   
   

Startup

It was a long time since we had a bike trip. While browsing through the tourist spots around Bangalore, I saw Bheemeshwari which was known for private tent pegging and night stay facilitated by Jungle Lodges. But Rs. 5000 seemed to be huge amount for one night stay per person. Ultimately the value of money also need to be considered. Hence we decided to go there with rented tents and do the tent pegging of our own. Got a tent from Bangalore Adventure Club, near Old Airport road(I don't remember the exact name). Rent was 200/ for one tent per day and security deposit was 2500/-. In one tent 4 people can stay, but we were six. Hence we rented two tents.

7.30 AM: After having tea at Maruthi Nagar road we proceed to Outer Ring road, filled our petrol tanks and then to Kanakapura road.

BTM - Kanakapura – Halagur - Bheemeshwari Road

9.00 AM: We continued our ride till Kanakapura and had our breakfast. It was time for shopping. Bought some bread packets, Jam and chips and moved to Satnur; then Halagur. Road condition is not that good but manageable, at least no surprises with big potholes. Now we need to take a left towards Bheemeshwari. We were discussing about buying liquor but suppressed the quest because of the worry about checking by forest dept.

11.00 AM: It was time to ride though bad roads. Lots of potholes and cattle on the way. Very difficult to go by making our own way through herds. I slowed down like anything remembering my near to death experience which happened two months back while passing a big bull which suddenly turned around. Just escaped that time but it was too horrible to forget.

Coracle and Cauveri River Crossing

Trip meter read 100 kms after reaching there. We were not interested in going to Jungle Lodges campus and proceed further to find nothing. Hence came back to coracle station to have a sail. Bargaining started with the coracle sailor and at last we got deal fixed for to and fro sail. That means they will take us to the other side; we may spent sometime at the other bank; when we are done with sight seeing we should call them, they will take us back to the base. Amount was around 300/-(I don't remember it exactly)

Locating Tent pegging site

3.00 PM: Now we want to locate our tent pegging site; saw some sites which are very near to Cauveri river on the way to Forest dept. office; we need to get permissions from Forest dept. to peg tents at night anywhere around Bheemeshwari. We went directly to see one forest official who looked decent. He told that we can peg our tent either in their compound itself or just outside at the Cauveri river bank. He also warned that there may be localities who want to grab money from us or snakes with venom at the river bank. Hence decided to go with his opinion and located the place to peg the tent within the Forest Office compund.

Trekking and Sunset

3.00 PM: We have finished all the preparations. Plan was to start tent pegging at 5.30 PM. One hour(till 6.30 PM) should be more than enough. Hence we decided to ride back to other Cauveri banks for sight seeing. On the way I was thinking about the possibility of trekking up a hill. I stopped after seeing a suitable one and asked others about trekking. None of us were ready except Sandeep who was my pillion rider. I was wondering why others don't have spirit to climb up a small hill. Anyway its up to them. We both started climbing up faster. For that we had to make our own way and sometimes grasses were of 6 feet height. Trekking down was easy and interesting. We joined the other guys and told that it was a real miss. They were sitting bored at the river bank watching the calm flow of Cauveri. Here comes the sunset. Cameras opened the eyes for capturing those views.

Tent Pegging

6.30 PM: It was too late for tent pegging. We hurried back to the forest office and started the tent pegging activity. Prinson and Myself had pegged this type of tent during one of our office outing. Hence we were too confident to do that again even without a rehearsal at home. We split ourselves into two groups.

Group 1: Myself, Raman and Sandeep.

Group 2: Prinson, Nirmal and Finton.

Actually I was supposed to guide first group. We started and then I realized that I forgot everything. I misguided our group and we couldn't do anything even after 7.00. Then I looked other group; their tent is half way done. Prinson didn't forget the method completely, Thank God. He could do it successfully and we copied the method from other group.

Swimming in Cauveri

8.00 PM: We were tired and started sweating after tent pegging. The only guy with us who knows swimming was Sandeep. Hence I requested him to accompany me. I was a little bit afraid because in one of the blog I had read that there are crocodiles at Cauveri banks of Bheemeshwari.(Later one of my friend confirmed that she has seen some crocodiles during her Coracle sail, from a distance). I couldn't pass this info to Sandeep because he will flee as soon as he hear this. I jumped into the water. it was deep, very deep and I couldn't find the depth. I came up to the water level and stared at the darkness around me.Sandeep called me from back and I gave him the green signal to jump but carefully because I knew that it was very deep. We swam sometime say 5 mins and my heart was beating like anything because of the thought of crocodiles. Hence I decided to wind up the adventure and told Sandeep to climb to the bank. I was feeling very happy as well as relieved while walking back to the Forest camp.

Camp fire

9.00 PM: Food and drinks was ready for us. We shared our drinks and it was time for Leg pulling again. We finished the dinner and drinks. Suddenly somebody came up with the idea of reviewing each others' bad nature. It was nice to see us talking about others' bad characteristics and accepting our own. This went on till 11. Suddenly one of us remembered that we should wake up at 4.00 AM next day to ride back to Madiwala because Monday is a working day. We found our places inside the tent and fall asleep very soon.

Bheemeshwari - Halagur – Madiwala

We woke up and started from Bheemeshwari at 5.00 . Someway we wanted to reach home; then office. Three Pulsars were on their way.

6.00 AM: We started from Halagur and were racing like anything. Need to be present in the office on time, no other way. Pulsar will never let you down. Raman don't like to driver faster. Myself and Finton moved past Kanakapura in no time. We joined at a tea stall and from there we rode together. Reached home at 8.00 AM after riding through some city traffic.

It was a nice adventurous tent pegging experience for us to remember and share .