Dudhsagar Falls

DudhSagar Falls : 19-Aug-11  –  21-Aug-11

My first tryst with Dudhsagar Falls was through a travelogue on bcmtouring.com that had a very neat description of the entire route. The pictures of this monstrous waterfall left me wondering how I hadn’t even heard of it inspite of atleast 6 visits to Goa. But all of those had been around May/December and that’s when I realized that the actual glory of these waterfalls is to be experienced in the peak monsoon !

I started to prod Santosh, Yogesh and Mayur for this one and they did not have any second doubts after reading the travelog on bcmtouring. The pictures uploaded there are enough to tempt anyone to visit this place. We started to plan out for this one sometime in April itself. Me and Yogesh would discuss this at length during our lunch and coffee breaks and try to find out all ways and means to do this trip. Each and every minute detail was well-planned and covered up well by backup plans. That said, family approval was above all – and luckily we had the go ahead from the wife community J.

There were still some unknowns that needed to be sorted out. Some facts were well known though. The waterfalls is bang in the middle of a busy rail route – somewhere near the border of Goa and Karnataka – on the South Central Railway. The railway track, in fact, bisects the waterfall 70/30 with the most beautiful part above the track. There are trains plying at almost all hours of the day through this route. One could easily get down at CastleRock station and hike along the tracks – without getting lost – and reach the falls.

We all agreed upon a good plan. Our main plan was supported by 2 backup plans in case things went wrong. There was a lot of if-then-else built around this J but I’ll leave that out for convenience 😛

Our plan was as below :

Onward Journey : Take the Goa Express from Pune @ 16:20

Plan 1 – Alight @ Dudhsagar Falls station (risk an un-official/random halt) at approx. 4:00 am, wait at the station till sunrise and walk the remaining 2 kms to the falls.

Plan 2 – If the risk fails and train does not stop at Dudhsagar Falls, alight at Kulem and hike uphill for 11 kms.

Plan 3 – Safest bet – Alight  @ CastleRock (one station prior to Dudhsagar). Wait until daybreak and hike the scenic 14 kms till the falls.

Return Journey : Take any available train to Madgaon station from Kulem.

Plan 1 – Take the Chennai Express from Dudhsagar Falls to Kulem (i.e if it makes an unofficial stop)

Plan 2 – Hitchhike a ride on any goods train / engine till Kulem

Plan 3 – Worst case scenario – Hike the 11km to Kulem

Myself and Yogesh started from Mumbai by Indrayani Exp. (??) and reached Pune well before time. There, we met up with Mayur for lunch at his favorite joint – Chutneys  (??) , and we gorged upon a very tasty meal. Mayur took off to get his bag from home and we whiled away sometime at Crossword – and were back at the station when Santosh called us. I was shocked to see the size and weight of his bag which was not at all ideal for a worst-case-scenario of 25 km trek. Still, hoping for the best, we ignored that thought.

The Chennai Express was approx. an hour late at Pune and that added more comfort as it would have reached the desired destination that much closer to daybreak. Some Chiku milkshake at the railway canteen was enough to help us bide time till the train arrived. As the train passed through the region between Satara and Sangli – there was enough scenery for Yogesh to catch some clicks. Moreover, we had the 3-tier AC coupe J all for ourselves after a Japanese/Korean/Mongolian (whatever) passenger – travelling with an Indian family – decided  it would not be too safe to sleep amongst us J. The alarm was set for 2:30 am (by timetable – CastleRock was to arrive at 03:05) and we were off to sleep not knowing what lay in store ahead.

As the beep of the alarm broke our sleep, I was about to snooze it as usual, when the sound of the second alarm – set by Santosh – brought me back to reality. Half the compartment was thrown awake by the noise, but Santosh seems to be oblivious about it – lost in his dreams – such a sound sleeper – we envy him. It took some moments to wake him up and stop that nagging alarm – but it was enough to awaken us completely. The train had just left Londa Jn. so were a definite 1 .5 hrs away from destination. Resisting all temptation to fall back asleep, me and Yogesh stood at the door trying to figure out the region, but the pitch darkness was of no help. All we could make out was that we were in the midst of a dense forest – part of the Mollem National Park. We asked the TC about the halt at Dudhsagar, but he gave us that ‘kutta jaane – chamda jaane’ look and asked us to take our own decision adding that the train will not stop at Dudhsagar.

That put us to plan 3, our safest option and as planned we alighted at Castlerock proceeding to search for a waiting room to wait till sunrise. The train was still at the station. While were trying to enquire for the room, one of the Kannadiga station attendants came running out and asked us to get back in the train as he was pretty confident it would stop at the brake testing station. We hesitated  for barely a minute and then – taking a split second decision – ran towards the train as it starting to chug out of the station. Memories of DDLJ returned as all of us managed to get in at the nick of time, although there was no Kajol involved – with the Plan back to risk and still Plan 2 as backup. The TC was amused at this entire episode and was looking at us with ‘Na jaane kahan se aa jaate hain’ look.

As the train moved on, we were straining our eyes in the dark to try and spot the station. In some time we passed Caranzol, which was pretty much nothing. It was almost invisible in the dark. We had almost started to repent on our decision to get back on the train, when, suddenly in the torchlight, Santosh caught a glimpse of the yellow board which said ‘Dudhsagar waterfalls”, the train briefly slowed down and stopped for something like 4-5 seconds. All 4 of us jumped down and walked towards the lineman’s cabin which looked like an island of light amidst the dark night. Luckily that turned out to be Dudhsagar station J which had no platform, just a  small office, probably for engine / brake checks before the train starts the descent/ascent in either direction. We found out, there was nothing much to sit, there were a couple of wet benches but they were occupied by the biggest and most fierce looking centipede we had seen, waiting there would have been a miserable experience , especially if it rained. There were other groups who had got down from the train, but it wasn’t as isolated as we had thought of it. The lineman then advised us to walk towards the falls along the tracks, there was a small church like structure which could save us if it rained.

Fortunately, it wasn’t raining and we decided to walk a little further till the makeshift church for some rest. There was another group out there and all of us were good fodder for the mosquitoes. After waiting for some time , we decided to walk on to the falls, rather than wait and listen to the loud  songs played by the other group on their mobiles. I fail to understand, why people want to use loud music when in secluded places. I have seen people put on loud songs whenever they are in a place of natural beauty, instead of enjoying the silence and natural sounds, which they otherwise won’t get in the noisy city. We started walking towards the falls, going through a tunnel –  all this in the dark with the fear of getting runover by some train considering there is just one track.

As soon as we exited the tunnel we could hear a thundering roar and see something white in the distance and we could make out we were near something really huge. There it was – the monster roaring away to glory – looking scary even in the dark. We rushed to the shelter above for a closer look, and admired the sheer magnanimity of this waterfall. Daybreak was an hour away and the wait didn’t last too long. Words or even pictures cannot describe the feeling of seeing these falls from such close quarters. I’m sure only the people who have actually been here will understand this.

Soon as it started to lighten up, the massive falls showed themselves in all their royalty. A small railway bridge which crossed the falls was the only way across the falls. The rest of the gorge was full of thundering water with amazing force. The water was really looking white like milk, justifying the name given. The spray from the water disabled my camera for sometime, but soon it was dry and taking pictures again :). We explored around for some time, went down some steps to take better pics. Made sure we never went into any dangerous spots. Going into the water was absolutely out of question, the force was too much by any standards – that, if someone were to fall in it, even the spirit would take 2 days to find a way out and  leave the dead body.

There are two abandoned shelters near the falls and one of them is even good for a night camp. Soon we decided we wanted to have a bigger picture and walked further along the tracks. The tracks turn around and give a complete view of the falls from the other side of the hill. After reaching the spot, the railway bridge on which we were earlier standing was looking like a midget in front of the falls and true majesty of the falls was revealed from here. The falls are about 300 mtrs from top to bottom, they are tiered though and don’t have a free fall. It was an amazing sight. We thought this was the best site to have a breakfast. 4 hungry mouths quickly lightened our bags – that varied from bread-butter-jam to dry fruits.

Then we had a quick vote on whether to go back to the Dudhsagar unofficial station and wait for another train etc or walk about 8 km to Kulem. We decided to walk ahead instead of walking 2 km backwards since we were not sure of the trains etc. The walk was not exactly comfortable, walking on tracks requires some concentration since u can’t miss the sleepers, if you do you could easily sprain on the uneven gravel. Moreoever, the sleepers are mostly covered with you-know-what J so escaping that is another ordeal.

The sights were amazing. complete greenery, waterfalls, small and big lined the way, intermittent tunnels added excitement to the walk. We finally reached a small cabin called Sanolium after about 3 km, the lineman there was very helpful, he told us to wait at a signal some way down the track and that one engine is going to pass that way and may give us a ride to Kulem. Some locals were already waiting for the engine, it seemed to be a popular ride amongst the locals. We got into the engine after the locals when it came and it dropped us to Kulem station by 10 am. It was a ride to remember, since none of us had rode a diesel engine before.

From Kulem it was pretty comfortable all the way. Kulem was a beautiful and peaceful small station. We got into a train towards Madgaon and were at our prebooked hotel before 1 pm, much much before then we had expected. We had expected that we won’t reach Madgaon before sunset, considering the amount of walking we had to do. But the engine and good advice at castle rock helped us, we didn’t have to walk much, maybe 5 km at the most. It turned out to be the best possible way out – by the grace of God.

In Madgaon we almost wasted the entire day at the hotel room, and took much needed rest. In any case, it was a lazy rainy season in Goa with no tourists either. The next day morning, we visited the Holy Spirit church and proceeded to the station to catch the train for Mumbai. There was some excitement since we reached in the nick of time. The train ride by konkan railway during monsoons is a treat, it’s a privilege, which few lucky souls get and even luckier ones are those who get to stand in the door and experience the greenery. The Ranpat waterfall which we saw from the train was matchless.

We reached home around 11:30 pm and were pretty happy about a trip that was expected to be difficult, but turned out much easier…

I hope the pictures below do some justice to translating our experience. Having said that – trust me – you have to be there to experience it. Else you will never know the magnanimity of this white monster called Dudhsagar. This was truly one of the best trips of my life.

N.B : Please pardon the picture quality (Had not taken my DSLR this time – all are taken from an old Kodak digicam)

Map location

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