We were looking at several places in and around Hubli and no doubt this was one place that everyone vouched for. We shud thank Santanu(as always), he is the one who always takes the lead role in googling out places...Sudhi's uncle gave us several plans to get to Castle rock..Take a train to Londa and from there book a taxi to castle rock..Actually there is a direct train from hubli to Castle rock, but as usual lady luck did not sing on us, there is no train on fridays. He was also suggesting that trekking from castle rock to dudhsagar would be very tedious and coming back would be a huge problem as the train from dudhsagar to castle rock in the evening is not guaranteed. He was preparing us for the worst case....However we decided that nothing was going to influence our collective decision.
Finally, we hired a tata sumo from hubli to castle rock...The distance was around 150 kms(one way). The cab driver was very reasonable(charged 6 Rs per km)...Four of the guys returned back to blore on thu night itself. Six of us- Myself, santanu(the allrounder), Piyush(the photogenic), Vikedo(the adventurous), Shiv(the silent assassin) and Suchi(the gyan guru) started from hubli around 7am.
We stopped at Dharwad(20 kms from hubli) for breakfast...We also packed some food for lunch as suggested by sudhi's uncle again(as usual preparing us for the worst case!!!!) that nothing would be available at castle rock. We left Dharwad at around 8:15 and reached Castle rock railway station at 10:45 am... As soon as we reached the railway station, there were couple of guys hovering around us willing to offer some help. This is quite natural in a small town or village where there are people always willing to help others. This is the best part I like in remote places, this kind of humility is very rarely seen in cities...We didn't realize that one of those guys was in fact the station master until I ended up bumping into him at the station master's room in railway station, who gave us directions on how to kick start our journey and answering all our queries patiently...Myself and Vikedo then had to go to a market to buy couple of torches.
Now, lets stop all the boring stuff and get into little bit more adventurous stuff... We started from castle rock railway station at 11:30 am and it took us 15 minutes to reach the 1st tunnel(which was quite a short one around 100m). We approached the 2nd tunnel in another 20 min. This was the longest tunnel(442 m), now this is where we realized the importance of a torch. It was totally dark and we were singing and shouting all the way till we approached the end of this tunnel in order to scare the snakes(again we were warned by the guys in the shop where we bought the torches). While we were approaching the next tunnel(a relatively shorter one-around 175m), one of the guys noticed a train coming in the opposite direction...We then stopped and took some snaps of the goods train as if we have never seen a train before!!!! Now this is a different feeling to be on the same track...
By the time we crossed the 3rd tunnel, i believe it was 12:30. No-one showed any signs of tiredness as each one wanted to prove that they are the best trekkers in the world!!! The 4th tunnel was a short one(don't remember the exact length), the end of which was the entry point of Goa...I was joking around that we have walked across 3 states(castle rock- karnataka, halfway through the trek, we were in maharashtra-goa border)!!!!! We ate some chips, biscuits during this time and avoided any heavy food as we knew it would have been very tough to walk...
All along, there was one guy who was never tired of posing for photos..Hey u guessed it right-the one and only piyush...There was this other guy who only speaks out when there is a lightening or an earthquake and that is of course Shiv. Then we crossed tunnels 5 and 6 & reached the station "CARANZOL" which is exactly half way(7 kms from castle rock) around 1:30pm. We were told by the station master that whole trek would take around 2 1/2 hours if we were fast enough. He saw us and said "You guys are youngsters and look energetic, so you should reach dudhsagar in 2 1/2 hours.."..We were half way through and it took us 2 hours...Now that really dented our pride..Shuchi shouted "Common guys, we should reach dudhsagar in 1/2 hour, stop posing for photos(this was specifically meant for piyush), his anxiety made him believe that that destination was just 1 km away!!!!! I dont know what happened then, shuchi's words were really inspiring for all of us even though target/deadline set by him was a bit unrealistic.
Everyone started walking so fast that for a moment I thought that we might achieve the target. I was always the last person in the race, not to forget santanu who was giving me good company. Vikedo was always the leader of the pack, he looked like a man possesed who has conquered several, which is not surprising- he comes from Nagaland!!! Then we went through tunnels 7,8,9,10 and reached the dudhsagar railway station around 3 pm. That really was a fast track, we just missed shuchi's deadline by an hour!!!!We checked with the guys in railway station and they pointed out that the waterfalls was just 1 km away. We had to cross one more tunnel and then came the awesome sight of the waterfalls...
We were admiring the water falls for sometime, while adventurous piyush wanted to do some kind of swimming. We had to then go down for half a km. Santanu and Piyush switched onto their swim trunks and others were just admiring the scenic beauty for a while. All of us were so much involved that we even forgot to look at our watches. Suddenly I realized that it was 4:30 and we had to return to the dudhsagar railway station by at least 5 to have any chance of catching the train. It took us 1/2 an hour to reach this place from the railway station, and this involving a uphill walk should take more time ideally. We quickly had some food(most of it was already spoilt) and then all of us had to run towards the station..
Half way through the return path, our hero Santanu got dehydrated, he couldn't even move, shuchi waited for sometime with him to get him back to track, while myself and vikedo started our way back towards the station. While we were in the tunnel, both of us heard some whistling train. Vikedo said "Oh god, we are gone..both of us are missing the train"...Little did we realize that 4 guys behind us would also be left out. We just crossed the tunnel and with the lady luck singing on our side this time around, it was a goods train waiting in the other direction for the express train to cross over.
We both reached the station and enquired about the arrival of the train, which apparently was in previous station and should be there in 10 min. I also tried for some other alternative just in case we missed the express train. The only solution was to take the goods train to vasco and then come back to Castle rock as the goods train doesn’t stop in dudhsagar in the return path. We did not have a clue on what happened to santanu or others as there was no airtel network. 5 min later, we saw the guys approaching the station. It was one mammoth effort from the guys, we all jumped with joy as soon as we met and the train came 5 min later…
The next half an hour was one of the best train journeys I have had in my life. Although I was just wondering how the train was passing tunnel after tunnel in few minutes, which took us almost 4 hours in the hot weather. Isn't life just like that? Anyways, we took the sumo back to hubli, had dinner there and took our train back to blore. The only thing we did after getting into train was to sleep, Of course it was a very tiresome and adventurous trek with several near misses… All in all, if you guys are looking out for a trek that is something different from the normal ones, don’t have any second thoughts on this one…
Although I would recommend anyone to plan it better than we guys did in order to avoid last minute rushes...In fact there is an early morning train from Hubli directly to Vasco(I guess) that goes through Castle Rock..You can take this train and reach castle rock and then it will take 4 hours to trek from caste rock to dudhsagar and spend at least 1 hour at the water falls & take back the train to castle rock(actually this train goes to hubli also)....
Check out the slide show of the whole trip below...
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