Hello All,
This is a review of a trip I took with my wife and in-laws to the Hogenakal falls on river Cauvery on the KAR-TN border.
We started from Bangalore (near Silk board) at 6:45 a.m. I was driving and we took the Hosur road and continued till Krishnagiri (world class road / toll). Before Krishnagiri, we stopped for breakfast (there were no decent places after that till destn. so proved to be a good move). From Krishnagiri, we took the NH 7 till Dharmapuri (very bad road ). From Dharmapuri, we took a right at a signed junction towards Hogenakal (OK road). Just before entering the Hogenakal forest, people took 40 + 10 bucks from us as some kind of fee. The Hogenakal forest is a nice drive with beautiful forest views and lots of monkeys as we go down to the water.
On entering Hogenakal town at around 11:30, we were met by the coracle guys. After some bargaining, we settled for a coracle to take us to the falls and a trip down the river and waiting time for bath, etc. for 400 Rs. We parked the car in the youth hostel pay and use parking and following the boatman, got into the coracle. The coracle itself was a wobbly but strong looking boat to which we got in with some acrobatics, (my mo-in-law had the toughest time :-). At this point you can view the cauvery flowing through the trees and the boulders and it presents a beautiful sight. The coracle deposits you on to an island, where you have to get out. Here we got the first views of the falls. It was magnificent, there is a small watch tower which you can climb for a panaromic view of the whole falls area. Then we climed back doen to the other end of the island, where we got back onto the coracle. Then we were taken right under the falls (a great feeling).
Let me describe the falls here to you, they are not very high and one such falls would not be a great thing, but here the cauvery leaps down over a large area creating around 15 such waterfalls which make for great scenery. Then the coracle took us down the river through a gorge onto the more calm areas where we had fresh fish caught and fried right before us! After around an hour of loitering on the river and getting under some of the falls, we went back to land.
There is a TTDC hotel which serves decent food and then we went back to the falls area to visit the Hanging bridge which serves as a viewpoint to yet more waterfalls !! This place is also famous for taking a massage and bathing in the falls here but we did not go for it.
For heading back we were told that there was a shorter and good road to Hosur but we could not find it but took another road to Hosur via Palakodu and Rayakottai which shaved off 30 kms from the journey. We started from Hogenekal at 3:30 and reached Bangalore at 7:30 .
All in all a great trip (the only minus being the bad roads in some sections)