Thursday, January 2, 2014

New Year Escape to Nagalapuram - Nagala West

We've had lots of New Year’s celebrations with family and friends for the last 20 odd years but the one that I am discussing here is totally off track celebration that thrilled us tremendously. No way, we forget the 2014's New Year celebration, wow!!!! What a beginning it was. It was absolutely adventurous and fun filled. It all started as a discussion and we ended up deciding on camping that night in some place nearby Chennai and finally fixed our destination as Nagala forest range, a gateway to crystal clear pools.  To reach the pool you need to trek around 6-7 km, one way. On the way you can witness 3 crystal clear pools. According to some blogs that I searched,third pool is very deep(around 40 feet deep).

Nagala trek starts from a village called Arai (Chittore dist,AP) which is nearly 100 kms from Chennai. It is advisable to make your own transportation arrangements. Public bus service is available till Nagalapuram(Sri kalahasti road) . We rented tents and purchased some camping stuffs in Chennai, also arranged for a cab in no time and left the city at 9 pm. Our camping site was on the banks of lake near Arai village which is few kilometers from Nagalapuram.

We reached the place somewhere around 30 minutes before mid-night, what a perfect night it was, the place was absolutely marvelous and the cool breeze was awesome, every single crystal of it came touching the surface of the lake carrying some essence of that water. You can imagine that to be the coolest place in winter one can ever think of, on earth. We were in the middle of nowhere and the stars were gazing upon us, it was a no moon day if I am correct what a perfect taste of Mother Nature. We quickly realized that it was almost 12 and distributed the work among ourselves. I took the charge to pitch up tents. Some went in search of dry wood for campfire. Couple of guys took charge of cooking and of course some guys took charge of petromax . This is called team work.

Night Masti

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Meanwhile it was 00.01.01 01/01/2014. Hurray . . .!! Happy New Year . . . ! Cheers… That ring of pendulum on the 24th hour pumped up some energy. Every one forgot how tired they were. There was a gush of adrenaline and all started dancing around the camp fire that we had set and enjoyed that moment. Then all were busy calling their loved ones  , family and friends, etc. . . . Overall we enjoyed like anything .

Dinner time it was, and we had our dinner at morning 4:30 AM :P beat that :). You can call it early breakfast as well. It was 7:30 AM 01/01/2014 when we got out of our tents and enjoyed the serene beauty of lake and surrounding mountains. Captured lots of pics and packed the tents and all our stuff. We left the camp site at 8:30 am and marched towards crystal clear pools which were created by the craters in the rock solid mountains and a clean falls of water from the top of mountain.

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Once you cross the first stream, path becomes tricky and there are chances of getting lost in the forest.We took help of some locals who asked us to follow the traces of water falls. We did follow the traces and the flow but somewhere around we lost the track and realized that we were on the wrong way. Ufff, after a long trek!!!! . Still we dint loose hopes because we found that we had to trail back and getting down the mountain is always easier that climbing it. One has to take left deviation from the path to reach the stream and follow the stream. But we missed that route, instead we turned right to ascend the mountain. However we witnessed the nice landscape view from top.

Initial Path

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Due to an extra hr of drama we reached First pool at 11 am. It was absolute pleasure and we were relived for our trek didn’t go in vain. It felt like in elysium.Water was very clear and cold too. We decided to take bath in second pool as it is much bigger than first pool. From first pool, second pool is around 20 mins walk. As soon as we reached the second pool,jumped into the water. Really it was an amazing experience. All our pain vanished within seconds. 

First Pool

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Some real Challenge

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Second pool

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After few swim drags or race and plays every one was hungry after we were drained off all our energy. Quite lucky that we had anticipated it and carried some Maggi packets. We cooked and had Maggie there itself. We din go to third pool as it was already 3 pm and trail becomes much difficult from second pool. It was 4 pm when we reached the base camp. Vehicle was waiting for us. Left Arai village at 4.15 pm and reached Chennai at 7:00 pm. 
And at last I would like to thank my friend Mr. Hemanth Kumar for helping me in the process of write-up.

WoW ...!! what a wonderful new year celebration it was. . .!! One of the best in my life.




4 comments:

  1. Hey, where did you rent the tents from?
    We are planning to go there too :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello everyone..!! Nice Blog nice pictures. Nagalapuram is a small town 70 km southeast of Tirupati. This village was designed during Sri Krishnadevaraya reign in the memory of his mother. The town has a very famous temple of Vedanarayana Swami. Nagala trail is one of the famous trekking routes in Eastern Ghats.
    Must visit URL- https://bmcadventures.com/events/event/nagalapuram-trek-eastern-ghats/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wonderful post about your trip to Nagalapuram. Nagalapuram is a best place to visit with friends. Thanks for sharing about this wonderful place in this blog. Love to read this blog. If anyone want to travel this place then book your bus tickets in Hebron Travels.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, nice trekking to Nagalapuram. Thanks for sharing about this place. I too love trekking these places. This blog inspires me to explore the same with my friends. Planning to travel Nagalapuram by bus, try in Amarnath Travels to comfort the trip.

    ReplyDelete