A less conventional trek in the Tamil Nadu circuit, Vattakanal is a little bit leaning to the difficult side. Vattakanal is a small village that is a few kilometres (6 kms) from Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, and is located in the southern tip of the Palani hills. The village is locally known as “vatta” which means circle. The trek to the Vattakanal village is one of the lesser - known treks in the Western Ghats. It lies on the eastern coast of the Western Ghats.

Arriving in Theni early on Day 1, you will start to the base where you can freshen up and start trekking. The first hour will be for warming up to the place and will be easy on the eyes with a couple of deeply hidden waterfalls.

After a welcome break, the trek begins to become taxing. Constantly steeping slopes combined with the thick jungles of the Western Ghats makes it a strenuous one. The view you will get when the forests rarely open up is majestic. Spotting wildlife is highly probable with Bison, wild goats, porcupines being the more common species. Forests with intermittent mist give it all a spooky touch and walking the trails feel like a true adventure. After trekking for well over 10kms, we reach Vellagavi, a 50 house village with no road connecting it to the rest of the world. They have to either come down to Kumbakarai or go up to Vattakanal for selling the fruits and spices which they grow in abundance. Oranges, Butter Fruit, Papaya, Banana, Guava, Passion Fruit, Jack Fruit are some of the many varieties of fruits you can find here, which make the entire experience worth it all. Deep in the jungle, an aptly named campsite Into the wild is where you would set camp for the day.

The next day welcomes us with an unforgiving winding path which is continuously steep and equally spooky with the mist. After a taxing 3 hour trek, the warmth of lemon tea in the cold weather of Vattakanal concludes a satisfactory trek. The trek ends at Dolphin Nose in Vattakanal.

This trek should be done only with an experienced or a local guide. As the trail passes through some dense foliage and chances of losing sight of the trail is fairly easy.

How To Reach

The closest town to the base camp ( Kumbakarai Waterfalls ) of the hike is Theni. The distance between Theni and Bangalore is around 450 kms one way which takes around 8.5 hours drive.

There are buses from Bangalore to Theni that leave from the electronic city (Bangalore). The buses can be booked on the Redbus website

Things to Carry

Personal medication (if any)
Strong backpack (Preferably waterproof)
Fresh pairs of clothes for two days
Toiletries
Mosquito Repellent Cream
Water bottles (at least 2 liters of water)
A torch with new batteries (must in case of emergency)
You can carry Energy Food (Chocolate bars, flavored milk, Electrolyte drinks - Glucose etc.)
Sunglasses, Sunscreen
Camera (Optional)
Shoes with good grip (Must)

Description

The Kumbakarrai waterfall is a major tourist attraction, right at the entrance of the forest. However, it gets completely dry during spring as there is excruciating heat and dryness. We crossed the waterfalls to enter the forest. Another important thing to keep in mind is to ensure carrying 3 litres of water with you, as water sources may have dried up during off-monsoon seasons. The trail was fairly flat initially with huge trees to give you shade at moments, offering clear views of the hills on the other side. But most of the forest shed their leaves during spring season, giving the entire landscape a fairly brownish-yellow color. The forest is so dry that it just needs a small spark to light up the entire valley into a ball of fire. And mind you forest fires are quite normal during this time here in this part of the region. All around it made for a riot of colors, as you walk on rusty brown leaves. The ascent gradually increases. Echo Point marks the end of the trek and your adventure, perhaps. Echo point offers some amazing landscape views, albeit one has to be extremely careful while posing for that one photo. One wrong step and you will fall down to thousands of feet.

Just across the Echo point is yet another tourist attraction; Dolphin's nose. It is a huge slab of stone, protruding out, giving an impression of the nose of a Dolphin. You will also find a lot of monkeys while walking till the forest entry point of Vattakanal. Be careful, anything suspicious that you may hold to them will invite their attention. There's also this small waterfall near the entry point which draws a lot of crowd. DO NOT drink or put that water on your face, it is dirty!

This trek is one that can be described as an ideal trek and it is good that not many know or visit it. Spring is the wrong season to be here, because of the heat. The valley wakes up during the monsoon, and is a treat to your trekking senses.