Destination Shivagange!

Sunday, 3rd March 2013

This Sunday it is finally trekking :-). We chose Shivagange for small trek. I was not alone this time. Two of my office colleagues Rajesh and Sudhir also joined me. The plan was to start early from Bangalore and reach there by 10. However, I made it late ;-). Again same startup hiccups made me join them late. It was planned to gather around 9AM but I could only reach there 30minutes late :-(. We boarded Suvarna Karnataka Saarige bus destined to Pavagada. We had to get down at Dabaspet and take auto from there. We reached Dabaspet around 10:45AM. Fortunately there was no traffic nearby both toll gates this time. We enjoyed tasty sugarcane juice (all of us had 2 glass full!) and later took an auto to Shivagange. Usually if they carry in bulk, it would cost 10Rs per head. Since we hired it, he took around 50Rs.

We started our trekking at around 11AM. We had packed so many food stuffs to sustain during the journey. The first 10% of the walk path till temple is steps. Remaining is either plain walk path or uneven steps and sometimes very steep (especially last few sections). In between there are lot of monkeys. They easily identify photographers and do not disturb them or their cameras [Unless you are not holding food items ;-)]. They do not even bother taking pictures of them closeup [they actually pose well :-)]. I was taking lot of pictures of surroundings and my colleagues. Sometimes I was playing around Depth of field and Shutter speed.

FIRST VIEW

DON'T TOUCH MY KIDS

ONE MORE VIEW STILL UP

LANDSCAPE ;-)

NANDI & LANDSCAPE

NANDI FACING LANDSCAPE!

Almost half way up, there is a temple called Olakallu teertha (Water inside stone) where Veerabhadraswamy is deity inside a cave. Also there is natural rock water tub which has small hole. It is believed that if you can touch water, you are lucky. Ironically most of them could touch it easily :-) (me and Rajesh too!). Sudhir did not come inside temple since he was lethargic to remove shoes. You can have small offerings to deity too. Also laddus are available for 10Rs each which contains 2 in number. When we came out, Monkeys saw that and they were adamant to grab it. However Sudhir did some trick to disguise the laddus and they finally went away.

OLAKALLU TEERTHA!

The picture inside olakallu teertha was the first time I went beyond ISO-800. I could not grab much light at 1/15s and f/3.5. Decreasing shutter speed would have blurred out photo [I don't have steady hand ;-)]. This made me to bump up the ISO to 1600. One might ask was flash would not have been better? Yes but but it takes away natural look IMHO. What do you think?



Some more pictures!

THERE ARE LOTS OF SUCH EN-ROUTE!

ADVENTUROUS GOAT :-)

There are lots of snack shop along the way till peak of hillock. So do not listen to vendors in middle who misguide saying they are the last vendor along the way. There are huge number of monkeys too! If they see food packet, they do not hesitate to grab. If they start grabbing, make sure you hand over the food packet otherwise you will end up in misery! [Even they do not mind sharing :-)].

DO YOU HAVE FOOD OR ONLY CAMERA?

We were getting tired but our energy was still full! We were having water melon, cucumber and water to make sure body has enough liquid. Water melon and cucumber are really tasty and very good. Watch out for overgrown cucumber at some places. After some more trek we reached a temple place where beautiful Shiva and Parvathi statues were laid. We thought that was the peak. LOL :D, that was only beginning! The real trek point starts now with steep steps and walk paths. That was really tiresome. Rajesh was saying we had seen only trailer and movie is about to begin now!

WE THOUGHT IT WAS OVER

LOL :D. MOVIE HAS BEGUN FINALLY!

Despite of huge tiredness I took lot of shots in between. The best thing was to capture monkeys and their mischieves.

LOOK WHERE AM I

STILL MORE HARD STEPS

After few more hard walk, atlast we see the great Nandi carved from single stone! Hurrah we are on top now! We had 2 full glasses of buttermilk which was very tasty. There are also two small temples on top. There is a view point where two stone pillars stand tall. It seems during sankranti somewhere near these pillars, milk comes out which is used for rudrabhisheka. Not very clear, one of the vendor cited this. It will be crowded too at this point of time.

AT LAST WE ARE ON TOP

ONE MORE VIEW

CAN YOU DO THIS?

BEAUTIFUL NANDI

We could see many people at around middle of hillock but not much at the top. May be some people backout? Not sure. There were some people who had climbed the hillock barefooted. Really amazing with such hot sun and burning rocks. It almost took 3 hours to climb the hillock. May be because we took lot of stops to rest and take pictures. The most active on top of hillock were monkeys! They were checking each visitor for food packets. One of the monkey checked Rajesh's bag and his shirt pocket :-). They are fearless! The return journey is pretty much easy and only caution is to make sure to control the gravity pull. We took just an hour to come down.

LANDSCAPE AND BOULDER

FULL LANDSCAPE

POND

ENTRANCE

We had cool drinks after we were back to ground. There are auto-rickshaws to carry back you again to Dabaspet. They were charging Rs.80 now for hire. May be earlier auto-rickshaw driver was resident of this place or had some work here, he took less money. We decided not to hire and waited until auto got filled. It costs Rs.10/- per head if you decide to board it as mass transport.

GOODBYE SHIVAGANGE!

At Dabaspet. we boarded a bus to bangalore but without a seat. Sudhir got early seat near Nelamangala but me and Rajesh could not get until Jalahalli cross. Make your own arrangements for food and travel. It is really tiring to travel standing on bus after trek. Moreover Dabaspet does not have direct buses to Bangalore and most buses run over the NH-4 fly over rather than entering town. Only buses from Pavagada area stop here. There are private buses but they do not reach Majestic.

Some mistakes I made while taking photos:

1) I did not pop up flash at shadows. Some portraits came in dark however corrected with GIMP. I believe this is the situation where you have to use flash even in broad daylight
2) Did not change picture style to portrait from landscape while photographing people. Pictures of portrait came up bit more sharper than required.

I hope I will rectify these during my next trips.

The video!:

Video time. I have one video as of now. The other one is yet to be uploaded!
Watch humorous scene of goats enjoying tap water