“The Great Green Route” – a memoir

Donigal to Yadakumeri Railway track trekking

So at last I am back after the most beautiful trekking experience of my life till now. I had been for many other lovely treks, but this one didn’t miss anything associated with the word trekking. It had everything starting from truck safari, scenic beauty, dangerous bridges, dark tunnels, up and down the hill, forest inhabited by elephants, food prepared at track side, night stay in the open station, campfire and ending with crossing the flowing river without knowing how to swim.

It all started with small plan to arrange for a get together with my friends who had studied with me at Manipal. And that too a plan for a 25Km, 10hrs trekking at Donigal – Yedukumeri Rail route or more famously known as the Great Green Route. Donigal station is situated around 4-5 hrs journey from Bangalore and 10 Km from Sakleshpur. The date was fixed and tickets where booked all in advance. The date was 16th December, just some days before the train route will be busy with increase in number of trains. We where 7 old friends, 6 from Bangalore (Nimesh, Rejo, Varun, Sajid, Alka and Ashwini) and me, Sainath alone from Mangalore (planning to join them at the spot).

I reached the meeting spot, Donigal tea shop “Hotel Picnic” at around 2.30 am. It was a chilling cold over there. 4 cup tea and 1 cup coffee that’s what my body had to take to withstand that cold morning hours till my friends joined me at 4.30 am. After finishing our morning needs and small breakfast we decided to start our journey at 5.15 am.


The Donigal station was again 5-6 kms from the spot we had got down towards the Mangalore side. We got a truck pickup till the Muthapan Temple on the highway. From there its now our way ahead. After walking about 1km in dark with the torch in hand we reached the Donigal station by 6.00 am and decided to start the trekking through the railway tracks. The first 2 kms we couldn’t find any major bridges or tunnels. The game of Anthakshari also accompanied us and even Rejo, who doesn’t like Hindi songs started chipping in with those blockbuster songs, along with the singers like Ashwini and Alka. Crossing the first bridge/tunnel was electrifying. But the thought of bigger and dangerous bridges and tunnels still waiting for us on the way made us walk more exciting.


Some of the tunnel which we crossed where dark and as long as half km, where filled with bats. Even those small water drop flowing through those stones and the hard blowing breeze inside those tunnels sounded like even they where joining us in the Anthakshari. The long bridges across some of the small streams where really photogenic and one would really try imagining how many days and how many peoples hard labour would have been used to build the mammoth structures.

After completing 12 Km, 10 -12 dark tunnels, nearly 15 bridges, posing for many more photos which we couldn’t count, we stopped for refilling our stomach at 12.45 pm. Made a temporary arrangement for boiling the water and preparing the Noodles. We succeeded in preparing a good noodle which was more then enough for our hungry stomach. During that course, Alka even had some small nap just beside the track.

As our energy was back and still some kms to complete we started the walk again. But this time everything was not as easy as it was earlier. There where 2-3 bridges with no proper iron planks for walking and where as tall as 5 storied building. Crossing those bridges took some courage out of me and a sense of achievement when we reached the other side.

Again walking for nearly 6kms we reached our trek destination Yedukumeri, a small station build for just passing the signals between Kukke Subramania and Donigal at about 3.30pm. We had a chat with the so called Station Master, one Mr. Lingeshwar (a chap wearing college volleyball jersey, never looked more) for a train lift till Sakleshpur. He was not ready to help us in any case. He told us that he can’t let those goods train drivers to take us back to Sakleshpur. Sad to say that how these types of bigheaded people spoils the name of Indian Railways.

After some useless negotiation with the station master, we decided to cross the jungle by our own and find the way out to the highway nearby. With very little information about the way out, we started to climb down the hill and crossed the small stream ending up finding a so called damaged road. But my instinct and the echoing sound of winds betrayed me and we started moving in a wrong direction. The walk become creepier when we found those elephant foot marks and dung all around and the sun started setting, increasing our shadows as we walked. It took us nearly 1hr to realize that we are on the wrong way. The only best thing we could do was return to the station and sleep for the night there. As all of us agreed for that, we started to walk back before the sun sets fully. To return back (climbing back up the hill) it took hardly half the total time of climbing down the hill. And at last we are again on the top of the hill at the Railway station.

After returning from the tiring and unsuccessful walk, we sat at the platform figuring out what went wrong and thinking “What ever had happened was for good”. We had our bread and jam packets opened and gobbled as much as we could. And made arrangement for a good sleep, which we couldn’t get the whole night because of the heavy cold and high wind which lashed every now and then making it tough to sleep. After struggling much for a good sleep we left the hope and got up by 5.00 am with the intension of making a campfire for getting ride of the cold. Collected some wood and successfully created a campfire.

We where joined by other 3 group of campers, who had come from Bangalore. We decided to move together and find the way out to the highway from there. After a bit of refreshment we all set out to find the way out. We all, around 18 of us climbed down together the hill and started walking in a pursuit to find the river which we couldn’t find the other day.

Walking for another one and half hour through the forest we where hearing the sound of trucks and busses together with the high flowing river. Ya we could even see the trucks and busses going through the highway just across the river around 400 meters away. The bridge was broken and only one way to reach the other side of the river was by stepping on the slippery stones which had formed a natural path for the trekkers. With all courage and withstanding the pressure of the flowing river all of us successfully reached the other side. I couldn’t resist the clean and crystal water for a long time, so as soon as we reached the other side I took a dip in the water and that refreshed my whole body. It was like whole pain had washed away with that one dip in the chilled water.

As soon as we climbed up to reach the highway out of the water, there it is, a KSRTC bus coming from Mangalore towards Bangalore. That was the time to say adieu to the great green route. Looking through the windows of the bus towards those green mountains which we had trekked, at least I felt like I had conquered that whole mountain range. But rather it will be better to say that the beauty of nature have conquered me.

tag : Donigal, railway, trekking, yedakumeri,Yadakumeri, yedukumeri,green route bangalore