Six of us went to Kuntala Falls on an overcast
Hyderabad morning. Kuntala Falls are the highest waterfalls in Andhra Pradesh
(falling from a height of 45 meters at one point) around 280 kms from Hyderabad.
We left at 6am and got around to the outskirts of the city
soon before connecting to NH. On a glorious morning, it is a pleasure to
travel by road especially when the road conditions are extremely good as was
the case here.
En-route to the falls, we stopped over at the Sri Ram Sagar
Dam which is around 80 kms from the water falls. It is a nice dam over the
shimmering vast expanse of Godavari river; but on the whole, the area was
not-so-clean, so we didn’t spend more than half an hour there.
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| Godavari view from Sri Ram Sagar Dam |
The majority of the route to Kuntala Falls is covered under
the North-South corridor road (Srinagar to Kanyakumari) which meant the roads
were in impeccable condition. The last stretch to reach the falls is a 10km
narrow road with bumps which was painful but we were still able to reach the
falls by around 11.30am making the total travel duration to be 4.5 hours
keeping aside one hour of stoppage for the dam and breakfast.
The falls are hidden by thick foliage of greenery, and one
can hear the falls even before it is visible. We first instinctively followed
the sound and ended up at the spot where there is a plain area just before the
water drops off. It was amazing to see the water flowing down (not an
absolutely free fall but through the rocks) with such force. We went close
enough to the water from above, had a nice time and could see the downward
flowing water and could see people at the bottom end of the falls in the far
off distance below.
We went back and had lunch (there is no provision there
apart from a small shop for chips, cold drinks etc. so better make own
arrangements); and then went off to the bottom of the falls which was a more
chartered route with steps (lots of them) and fencing etc.
Finally on reaching below, and then getting a clean sight of
the falls we realized that we weren’t getting the complete glimpse of the falls
from above (the view was blocked off). From below, the sight was truly magnificent.
You see the water just thudding off from a height with such
enormous tremendous force – if it was amazing to see from above where we could
only see partially; this, from below was just plain unnerving. With the sun on
us as well at noon, some of us claimed to see a rainbow at the point of impact
of the water (I wasn’t so lucky to see the same).
The area near the falls is covered in frothing, steaming
white which obscures visibility. The droplets off the impact of the water
hitting the plain area could be felt up to a large distance of about another 50
meters or more. We had a good time there attempting to go as close to the point
of falls hitting the water as we could – this was achieved by walking over a
bunch of slippery rocks covered with green moss. Most of us ended losing
balance and then crawling the rest of the distance on all fours like a baby. Gazing
at the falls from a close distance gives a mesmerizing effect and you tend to
feel how weak humans really as compared to the forces of nature.
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| Kuntala Falls from the river bed |
Having spent some good time in the water, we turned back
from there around 3.30pm. We left for Hyderabad and had a good time looking at different cloud formations in the sky attempting to spot different patterns. We were able to hit the city
outskirts by 8pm all-in-all capping a nice day’s trip.
Link to photos: here.
Route:
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| Tornado-shaped cloud (on the way back) |
Link to photos: here.
Route:
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