Beach trek (Bada / Gokarna / Kudle / Om )

As the 3 day republic day long weekend approached, decided to head out of the city . We headed to the pristine uninhabited beaches of Western Coast of India.

Getting There
You can reach either of the places by road or by train. The most convenient way to get there by road would be book yourself tickets from KSRTC with buses that run overnight and reach the destination early morning or if you could drive down the awesome roads of NH4. If you intend to take the bus or train make sure you book your tickets well in advance.

Our last minute planning meant driving down in my good old 800cc ALTO.

Here's the route we took , later I heard there is a more scenic drive via Shimaga .

Route:
Bangalore -> Tumkur -> Davangere -> Haveri -> Sirsi -> Kumta

Thursday Evening:
From bangalore
To: Tumkur (71kms), Chitradurga (200kms), Davangere (261kms)
A total of 260kms of journey.

Friday Morning:
From Davangere
To: Haveri (69kms), Sirsi (140kms), Kumta (200kms)
A total of 200kms journey

The first day road journey took awhile since we headed out of the city only at 6pm. I would recommend leaving a little early to avoid driving at night .We reached Davangere around midnight and checked into a lodge.

We headed out to Kumta early next morning, parked the car at a lodge . Had a great meal and then took the bus to Bada Village(5rs tickets). You can test your negotiating skills with the auto/taxi guys who were asking for an astronomical 250rs for the short ride.

Bada Beach

Once you alight from the bus , cut across the farms on the roadside walking towards the Bada Village towards the Aganashini River. Incase you have doubts ask a passerby on the main road.

As you walk across the farms you are greeted by a pristine beach all to yourself. The sight is unbelievable!!After an hours walk along the beach you see the hills towards north that ends at Tipu's Fort wall .You might meet some Fisherman on the way and also catch some crabs.



We decided to camp at the beach that evening. The only sound one could hear was that of the waves and the occasional chat amongst us. As the sunset , we struggled to light the fire and suddenly a villager came by from nowhere and helped out. We were able to prepare the evening cuppa tea and dinner.

As night descended and there was a nip in the air, we kept the fire burning and slipped into our sleeping bags with the open skies and stars above and the sea at a distance. This was the first time I sacked out on a beach with not a soul in sight.

Gokarna
The next morning we woke up and the friendly villager who helped us with the fire the previous night came up and offered us tea and fresh neer dosa at his house. I was really touched by this gesture. As we left he also gave the five of us fresh coconut from his farms.

We walked back to the main road and took the bus(4 Rs only) to the Aganshini River since a couple of fellow travellers didn't want to trek to the river banks. We toke a boat(2.50Rs only) from the banks of the river to Tadadi Village. Once at the Village, we found a every friendly villager helping us with the directions to Gokarna. Its a 5-6kms walk from the Village to Gokarna. It was a bit hot and a it turned out to be a tiring walk.
Once at Gokarna, we just hit the restaurant and loaded ourselves with a good meal. Like all the tourist places you get all kinds of cuisines from across the world. I had heard a lot of Gokarna but found it bit too commercialized and drastically different from the uninhabited Bada Beach.

Kudle
After the meal, we trekked across to Kudle beach. Its a nice clean beach with mostly firangs and a few indians around. The trek from Gokarna to Kudle takes around 20-30mins.
Kudle has a whole bunch of shacks to stay and also cafes which serve reasonably priced food. We found a lot of firangs playing freesbie, meditating , juggling etc. simplying having fun!





OM Beach
We then trekked up to the next beach OM. This is another of the famous beaches and just like Gokarna it had tons of people and vehicles parked on the road.
Both Gokarna and OM is approachable by road and hence you will see too many people. The sight of the crowd at OM brought us back to Kudle :). We had a great meal once we got back to Kudle in one of the beach cafes and again sacked out on the beach that night.

The next morning we woke up early and walked back to Gokarna and took a bus back to Kumta and then picked up my car from the lodge and drove back all the way to Bangalore. I had a great time driving the 470 odd kms since i was the lone driver and the roads were simply great.

I think we could have covered Paradise and Long beach in the three days, if we had planned the trip a little better and also had a few trekkers alongside.

I plan to go back to these beautiful beaches very soon!

Photos from the trip