Sphering, WWRafting, and Bruar Canyoning, Scotland

Well, what can be the perfect way to end a two week long trip to UK and scenic Scotland than two days of extreme adventure. This time I was with my family which is generally expected to be more of a sight-seeing trip. However, I seem to have given my brother-in-law the adventure bug and he also convinced my sister to take part in our adrenalin shots.

Nae Limits near Perth in Scotland is an award winning Adventure Club and is known for White water rafting, adventure tubing, zorbing and extreme canyoning among other things. We tried Sphering (zorbing), white water rafting on the Tummel River and Bruar Canyoning.

Sister and BIL posing before their roll

Sphering is this gaint rubber ball that they strap you inside and roll it down a hill. It was a weird and bumpy ride and lasted all of forty seconds. The second time around, my sister decided to give the ball a very hard shove before it took off. BIL and me were strapped inside and screaming as the ball made us do somersaults at something like ten kms per hour. Which is quite a bit of somersaulting. Overall, different but not worth the money.

The Sphering site, Nae Limits

Negotiating rapids on the Tummel River

The afternoon was spent white water rafting on the Tummel River. The last time I tried this was exactly a year ago on the Sita Nadi in Agumbe and I was disappointed. I volunteered for the front seat in the raft and got it without much trouble unlike last time. :) Most of the rapids are a grade 3, but there is two tier waterfall right at the end and is rated grade5. That fall was amazing and we took it going backwards! Apparently, in every rafting trip, atleast one of the rafts capsize on that rapid but ours was a record of sorts with none of the rafts turning over. Again, rafting was good but nowhere close to the adrenalin shots that me and BIL were expecting to get high on.

Going down a Grade5 rapid in Reverse!

The best part came last. Bruar Canyoning. This involved one and a half hours of high octane cliff jumps, waterfall slides, scrambling and rappelling. All this on a furious river rushing down a gorge. There are very few places in the world that offer this kind of an experience I reckon. It was just mindblowing. It was like this natural water amusement park ride laid out by nature. In an amusement park, its perfectly safe. This has a high degree of danger to it and thats what made it all the more exhilarating. I volunteered to do a cliff jump first and ended up getting swept into a cave. Finally, I had to be hauled out by a rope. That was scary. Luckily, the cave was a dead end! BIL and me couldn't stop grinning after the experience. We thought it was totally worth the trip. All in all, I would recommend Canyoning to any guy who is not scared of water and has good swimming skills.

BIL executing the jump

Our Canyoning guide Mia, hauling me out of the cave!

Whoa, thats high! Gotta be mad to jump off from there.

Taking Wing Part 2 (Paragliding at Yelagiri, Vellore) - May 30-31, 2009

Did I mention the practice flights from the BSF hill that we christened as the "Firing Hill or Bullet Hill"? Perhaps I did not. That is for another day and time. Now, shall we concentrate on our latest achievement of successfully completing high altitude solo flying? Yes, I suppose you must listen to what I have to say for you have the misfortune of chancing on my blog at this opportune moment.

Take off at roughly 1100metres above sea level and landing at 450 metres above sea level. Need I say more? Indeed I must. Yelagiri came to our rescue while Nandi repeatedly played spoil sport with the weather. One weekend saw us getting up at absurd morning hour to set off on the drive to Yelagiri. The highway is brilliant I might add, letting one cover over 150kms in less than two hours in the morning when traffic is sparse.

Saturday was not a very good start. My tandem flight with Vrata was barely ten minutes while Bharat and Naveen had both managed 45min+ tandems from Nandi2. I was not very happy with my short flight. The tandem glider it seems is a beast to control. You need to really pull at the brakes with all your might and even then the glider responds slowly and almost in protest. The landing happened right in the middle of thorny brush and Vrata happily used me as a cushion and got away unscathed. :)

The evening saw us waiting for the winds to settle down from the Hanuman takeoff but to no avail. I spent the time catching up on some reading of Ashok Banker's Ramayana Book4.

On Saturday night, I was still not sure whether I was ready for my solo the next morning given that my tandem was of a very short duration. However, I decided to take the "leap of faith" alone the next morning since I was fresh from a good sleep the previous night.

Wiggling into the harness proved a challenge on my first solo flight. I finally gave up and decided to fly standing. Landing went more or less according to plan with Vrata guiding me on the radio. Didn't really enjoy much of the first flight since there was a lot going on through my head at the time. We came back to RK take off in the afternoon for a second flight. This time, once in the air, I let go of the brakes and pulled myself into the harness with both my hands. (Its really amazing to see that the glider which can be packed into a backpack can actually carry your weight in the air while holding rock steady. You really begin to appreciate the engineering marvel. ) After that, it was really smooth sailing. I turned back to catch a view of the Yelagiri range which I am told extends for about 8kms from one end to the other. It was really a sight to behold. I was flying at the level of the mountains and from up there and close, you could see that the mountain was really lush green and beautiful as compared to the hazy brownish green look that you get when you look at it from the ground. Up there in the air, everything is very calm and pleasant and you can hear the whishing sound of the air through your glider. I only wished that I could ridge soar, so that I could stay up in the air for about an hour. Impatience, my lad. All in due course of time. Landing went well again with me landing on my feet after completing a couple of eights above the landing site.

The third flight in the evening happened in low winds. The landing site was much further than the previous sites and the lack of wind meant that I sank faster than I expected. This meant I could not reach the designated landing site and my landing turned out to be less than perfect. :P However, its all part of the learning experience I guess and I escaped unharmed.

Vrata says that we graduated to the flying club with "flying colours". Personally, I think there is quite some way to go before we perfect the landing approach. Take off seems like child's play now in comparison. But I guess thats only because I have now had seven take offs while I have only done two proper landing approaches. I guess I can maintain a flight log now. I could probably log about 50 minutes of flying time total in the book now. :P

By the way, Bharat gets adventurous on his second solo flight and gets a in-flight video. This is a must see!

To sign off, I must say that I have always been a little scared of heights and overcoming this fear was indeed an "uplifting" experience (and how!) and memories I will cherish for a very long time to come.

Thanks to Vrata, Rajesh and Robin for helping make my dream successful. And of course Bharath for learning with me and also for taking my videos.

Taking Wing (Paragliding @ Nandi Hills)

"I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky."

8 different people, 1 club, 1 mission ...
Title: Basic Hill Flying course
Directed by: Aurovrata Venet (Paragliding Instructor)
Production house: Bangalore Mountaineering Club
Venue: Hoskote & Chotta hills (Nandi hills base)
Dates : 24th, 25th, 31st Jan. & 1st Feb. 09

Kitty(Krishna), Bhat(Anand), Bacat(Bharath) and I set out to see if we could fly solo. Everyone has heard of tandem paragliding flights where you are strapped to a harness along with a trained pilot. The pilot has all the controls. All you do is sit back and enjoy the scenery below. Now whats the adventure in that. Vrata had the answers...

Three days of ground handling training at a dry lake bed @ Hoskote prepared us for the reverse launch technique. For the uninitiated (which most of us are), refer to launching techniques here.

Kitty practicing some ground handling at Hoskote

The small take off zone at Chotta hills (which is actually the base of Nandi hills roughly about 10X10m), and the moderate steady winds in the mornings and late evenings makes reverse launching the most suitable launch technique.

The above is a picture of the wind sock. A steady wind sock indicates a steady wind ideal for launching.

It may look easy, but believe me, its not. It took us three days to get the basics right. Even after that, we still needed to abort some launches since the wing used to come up sideways or due to too strong or too low winds or because we were just plain scared in the beginning. Here is a look at what a strong wind can do to your ego. (Courtesy Bhat)



Here, the sideward wind seems to take the glider to the left and pulls Bhat along with him as he turns around to launch. He has no option but to kill the glider but has a hard time doing it since he is not facing the glider at this point.

Some of the things to keep in mind are the A-risers, leading edge of the wing, brakes, harness, strapping up, wind velocity and direction, flaring and a lot more. Suffice to say, there is a pretty steep learning curve initially at least.

Rajesh doing some pre-flight checks before take-off

Thanks to Kitty and his brilliant camera for all the videos. He patiently stood there and took a video of everyone's flight so that we can have something to show others and also watch it again and again and get excited all over again. Will put up Kitty's flight also here soon.



I managed to run like crazy and also seemed to get a lucky gust of wind just as I took off which took me really high up compared to others. The typical flight from Chotta hills lasts about 50 seconds. You take off from the launch site. As soon as you clear the relief of the hill, you turn right, fly parallel to the mountain for about twenty seconds and then turn left back into the wind for a landing in the fields below. A small 'Z'. However, when I turned in for the landing, I had barely lost altitude. As a result, I ended up doing one and a half S-curves to lose altitude before I could finally land safely on the fields. Just before you land, you pull on both brakes to "flare". This brakes your forward momentum. If you do it just right, you ll be able to just step down right at the spot kind of like how a chopper lands. If you don't do time it properly, you'll end up running a couple of metres or fall like a deadweight once you lose speed. As it were, my landing was perfect. :P By now, you might have noticed that I like to brag about my flight. Well, what do you expect? I just flew solo for the first time in my life!



Here, you can see how Bharath didn't pick up enough forward momentum on account of low winds. As a result, he had to do a last minute hop and run to take off right at the edge! It took me sometime to gain the confidence to just let go and run like crazy. The first time before I took off, I was nervously wondering if I would be able to generate enough forward momentum to take off before the edge. Once I saw a couple of people taking off, especially Bharath, who has a 100% success rate till now (two launch attempts and two successful take offs), I decided I could do it too. On my third attempt, I said a silent prayer and launched. And by God, what a feeling it was to be air-borne. Mindblowing! By far the most adrenaline pumping thing I have ever done in my life. Going back and listening to "Learning to fly" by Pink Floyd, I could really appreciate Roger Wate's thoughts and connect with the same emotions.

In the end, all the training came to those 2 flights of roughly a minute's duration, but it was all very well worth it. I'm definitely going back again. I always used to love water, waterfalls, rivers, beaches and oceans. Now I think I have found my new love, the sky! Can there be anything more liberating than to spread your wings and fly.

Big thanks to Rajesh and Arvind for their patience, encouragement and amazing tips! You guys rock!

For once man has tasted flight he will forever walk the earth with eyes turned skywards.
For there he has been and there he longs to return.

--Leonardo Da Vinci

Soaring in the skies (Part 1)

I always wanted to go to Kamshet in Pune to do the Paragliding course. However, I could never find the correct time or the company to go all the way to Pune. Then BMC comes as a saviour by organising the course in Nandi hills right here in Bangalore! The moment I read about this, I pounced at it. After aggressive marketting, I convinced both Kitty and Bhat to come along. Starting this weekend. I can hardly wait for the weekend to start!

Meanwhile, this is a link to a solo flights partaken by one of the students who trained under Vrata last week at Nandi hills. I was blown away after seeing this!

http://pgmassala.blogspot.com/2009/01/alisons-first-flight-at-chota-hill.html

I'm sure anyone who's seen this will want to take the course and learn for himself. More updates and photos on my experience after the weekend. Stay tuned!

The under water ocean safari at Goa! Oct 2nd - 3rd, 2008

Scuba Diving!!! This is the second of the adventure sports that I am now taking off the list of have-to-dos after white water rafting. The other items on the list at present are:

1. Skiing
2. Paragliding
3. Cliff Diving
4. Bungee Jumping
5. Sky Diving
not necessarily in that order

A four day vacation at Goa kicked off on the evening of Sept 30th. A long weekend and late planning meant we couldn't find direct bus to Panjim and had to take the tortuous route of Bangalore-Karwar-Madgaon-Panjim. 17 hours of travel is not a pleasant experience! Only four guys made the cut this time. Krishna, Mithun, Adarsh and I. This time, I got everyone involved in the booking so that they would realize the effort involved in organizing everything. :P That meant Krishna did the research, Mithun did the scuba-diving booking and Adarsh did the bus tickets booking and I did all the co-ordinating between the group. What I love to do in any situation, managing!

We actually landed on the first day of the season opening at Goa. If we had arrived a week earlier, even the beaches would have been off limits due to the monsoon. Imagine the timing! To add to that, we were also the very first batch of scuba divers for this year's season. A trip of firsts!

Since it was a four day extravaganza, its almost impossible for me to go over the trip event by event. I will stick to the highlights of the trip.

Before I even start, let me first tell you that the trip was a culinary orgasm of sorts for me. Never before have I tasted so many different dishes and great food in a single three day stretch. Let me list down all the amazing dishes that I tasted. Every day and every meal was at a different restaurant and each was better than the other. The highlights are:

1. Oct 1st - Lunch @ the Ritz, Panjim
White snapper masala fry plus vegetable biryani - brilliantly soft and fresh fish and amazing masala in the biryani. Mithun had the fish thali from which I also got a taste of some crab meat and mussels curry which were okay, but a pain to break away all the shells.
2. Oct 1st - Dinner @ Jamies - European Fast Food, Bagha beach
('Over the flames' has shifted to Candolim and this restaurant come up in its place, but the food in this place was amazing as well. Sadly, I could not make it to Over the flames this time.)
Calamari fritters - (squid rings shallow fried)
Tiger Prawns - (forgot the dish name; these are huge prawns marinated in some amazing masala; simply exquisite)
Chicken chettinad + idiyappam - south indian combi

Tiger Prawns @ Jamies

3. Oct 2nd - Lunch @ Xbar, Bagha beach
Kingfish Cafreal + 3 tawa rotis - Goan preparation in coriander and spinach. Superb!
4. Oct 2nd - Dinner @ Platain Leaf, Calangute circle
Usual North Indian fare since Adarsh was tired of all the exotic food since he is a veggie
5. Oct 3rd - Lunch @ Capricorn, Calangute Beach
Jumbo Prawns biryani + Butter Garlic and Lemon Barracuda
The Barracuda meat was good, but too bland and the quantity way too much. Mithun's Grilled King Fish was better. The biryani was out of the world again.
6. Oct 3rd - Dinner @ The Infantaria
Jhinga masala (Prawns preparation - An ancient Hyderabadi recipe) - superlative
Bebinca and vanilla ice-cream - A traditional Goan dessert that I even got back home for my parents and colleagues since it was so good.
7. Oct 4th was usual south and north indian fare. If I had my way, I would have tasted three more new dishes at least, but the rest of them were already complaining that we were spending way too much on food.

NOTE: Dont miss The Infantaria, Jamie's European Fast Food, Over the Flames or Brittos at any cost if you ever visit Goa and are a non-vegetarian who likes to try out seafood and new stuff. Phew! I got exhausted listing all that out.

The other thing that I love about Goa is all those deserted well maintained roads. Since we had hired bikes (which is a must by the way if you want to loaf about in Goa unhindered), it was a welcome change to be able to rip on the roads with the wind on your face and no traffic to hinder you. In spite of the rented measly 100cc bikes, it was hardly difficult to do speeds of 80kmph even on non-highways.

Our stay at Bagha beach was very close to the beach. Being off-season, we managed to get a really good room for the four of us (two wide beds plus one extra bedding) for Rs. 500/- per day. It had a fridge, a/c and TV (although TV didnt work) too. The operator at the lodge told us that the same rooms sell for 4000/- during peak season! Thats an 87.5% discount for us! In fact the very next day, he started quoting 800/- for the other customers for the same room. In fact, Mithun's colleagues stayed at the same hotel in November and ended up shelling out 3K per night!

Infantaria had a live band - a Goan trio playing on Friday evening. And although they were only doing covers, the vocalists (alternating between the lead/bass guitarist) had very good voices and it was quite an enjoyable evening of music. Some Austrian tourist and his girlfriend also chipped in with some Austrian number in between and the crowd went mad.

The band @ Infantaria with the Austrian chick

PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) has setup a dive centre at Bagha- Arpora, Goa, where you can not only do dives for pleasure around Goa but also receive the 'Open Water Dive Certification' which allows you to dive anywhere in the world with a buddy. However it doesn't come cheap at 18k for the course. We opted for the 'discover scuba diving' course here, which involved introductory training as well as two open water dives. I think it was well worth the amount (3500 rupees).

The water at Goa was quite murky especially since the monsoons had just stopped and the water was yet to clear up completely. In spite of that, we were able to see a wide variety of coral fish in myriad colours, sting rays, moray eels, lobsters, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and a few varieties of hard and soft coral. Imagine diving at Bali or Maldives or Australia with a dive certification where the water is almost as clear as the water at your local swimming pool if not clearer!

All of us in our dive suits

Anyway all of us came out from the course thinking that we would definitely come back some day to do the open water dive certification.

You can vist Morjim, Mandem and Ashwem if you long stretches of pristine beaches that you can have all to yourself. We saw a huge flock of sea-gulls in Morjim and ended up watching the sun go down sitting in the middle of the sea.

Sunset @ Morjim Beach

Flock of seagulls @ Morjim

The only thing which badly wanted to do but didn't have the time was to go to Dudh sagar falls. I had heard and seen a lot of pictures of the beautiful falls and din't want to miss it. But sadly, we ran out of time...
Overall, the trip was a lot of fun and I dont regret the decision to go to Goa instead of some adventure outing.

White Water Rafting? at the Sita Nadi, Agumbe, July 19-20, 08

After a two month break following the Wayanad trip in May, we finally got together again for a WWR trip at the Sita river in Agumbe. While this is probably not the best sites to be doing this, it is the closest, one that we could go in a weekend and come back.

It is generally an uphill task to get everyone to be free at the same time and after a month of advanced planning the dates were set for the third week of July. By the way, this was also the first trip that I organised fully on my own right from finding out details of the trip, book the rafting and the bus tickets. Phew! Tiresome work, but I was determined to make the trip see light of day.

Agumbe is known as the Chirapunji of the south understandably because of the rainfall that it receives during the monsoons. This water is supposed to feed the Sita river as it gushes its way to the Arabian sea forging its way through rapids (or thats what we thought).



Since we had the Saturday to ourselves, we got off at Someshwar. This is a view of the Agumbe ghats from Someshwar at eight in the morning. By the way Adarsh tells us that the hills are not exactly Ghats but just the end of the Deccan plateau from where we descend to the coastal plains in the west. He could be right. Agumbe is just about 850m high which is actually the same height as Bangalore. We initially planned to stay over at Anil's uncle's place at Someshwar but then decided to stay over at the top.

Agumbe has four very scenic falls - Kuudlu Theerta, Onake Abbey, Sirimane falls and Jogi gundi. Of course all of them can only be accessed by a trek which is a very good thing because we don't want bumbling tourists to spoil their pristine beauty by littering the place. However since I was with a group of friends who prefer beer slugging to a three km trek anyday, we had to go the one which had the least trekking to do which was Jogi Gundi.


Nikhil, it is in fact Jogi Gundi and not Joga Gundi like you insisted. Check it up on the net. Don't simply argue unnecessarily. Apparently a rishi 'Jogi' meditated here after which it got its name. Hardly a big falls, but it was a very secluded place surrounded by really tall trees on one side and a fast flowing river on the other. And we had the place all to ourselves. The last time we came here, Nikhil and I jumped off the rock some fifteen feet high straight into the Gundi. This time around, it was too slippery to venture up the rocks. Although the guide/driver told us not to get anywhere near the falls, I usually cannot rest until I have had a dip right below the falls wherever it is. So we did make it there and pose for a few pictures too. Adarsh had the brilliant idea that we should all take off everything we had on. The adventurous lads that we were, we all dived in, removed our undies and even waved them in the air in exultation which was captured on camera for posterity. The difficult part is to try and put the undies back on while staying in deep water since you have nothing to balance on and you can't afford to come out of the water with nothing on!

All in all, a refreshing experience to swim in ice cold water with nothing but nature around you. A delight for the cubicle sitting techie.

Adarsh knew a bajjiwallah near the Sunset Point since his native place is close to Agumbe. Our next stop was there. We quickly became his VIPs and were treated to 58 (35 mangalore bajjis which tasted more like uddina vadas and 23 masala vadas) vadas. With six guys, thats an average of almost 10 per head! We were all confident that it would have touched three digit figures had we not ordered lunch at our hotel in advance which we had yet to eat! Just to give you a comparison, our bajji bills came up to Rs. 160 while our full plate meal lunch was Rs. 108!

This is one photo of the trees by the road to Shimoga on Agumbe which I feel resembles Switzerland, thought to be honest I have never visited yet. This is just to reiterate to people that you don't need to go all the way to Switzerland to experience beauty like this. Its right here in Karnataka.

Dinner and breakfast consisted of piping hot neer dosas, buns and steaming idlis with some lip smacking sagoo at the Hotel Ganesh Prasad. Amazing food! Glad we didn't stay over at the Sita Nadi camp. Would have missed all this amazing food. When we go back to Agumbe the next time, there is no doubt as to where to head for food.

Even the crappy 'Mallya Residency' that we stayed at had this beautiful view from the balcony early in the morning on Sunday. We were initially given to understand that this was a 'resort' which we naturally assumed was Vijay Mallya's. We only later discovered that it was a run down two story lodge. But it served our purpose well enough. We are not luxe travellers in any case. A warm bed and a roof will suffice.

Sita Nadi as seen from the camp. The rafting was a far cry from white water. Poor monsoons this year played spoilt sport and 80% of the time we had to row hard. The biggest rapids lasted a couple of minutes at most. However, the small blue raft that we used for the first half of the run did splash enough water to excite us once every while. We dived into the cool waters for a swim every half hour to break the monotony of the rowing. Our rafting guide Karan from Nepal introduced us to the back somersault of the raft which I was convinced to learn. Once I had got a hang of it, I couldn't stop doing it and this became the adrenalin thrill of the ride. Nikhil and me even managed to get videos of us doing the back flip. Learning how to pull yourself back onto the raft was also a big thrill. I was the only one in the group who could manage it. Others had to be pulled back on by someone inside the raft.


In the beginning all of us were fighting to get the front seats in the raft since that was where all the action would be. Nikhil and me even pushed each other of the boat even before we started off. But post lunch, people were fighting to stay at the back since they wanted to nap! The second boat after lunch was a bigger grey boat which felt like a Merc and we could hardly feel any of the rapids on it. They seemed like supressed speed breakers. Our guide Karan did get friendly with us after a while and told us a lot of interesting stories about the rafting in the north. In Nepal, there is apparently a rapid named 'Dead Man'. Any guy who falls of his raft in that raft is a dead man. Which is how it got his name. He also said that the Nepalese rafting guides are very much in demand for their services throughout the world.

The entire rafting actually lasted from ten in the morning to five thirty in the evening! Thoroughly exhausted at the end of it. But the trip was definitely a change from the usual trekking trips. Around four o' clock in the evening, we got off the rafts and lay down on a island rock in the middle of the river. All of us dozed off for almost half an hour under the warm sun. After that Macy was reluctant to get back into the raft and get wet again. But he had no choice. After the end of all the rafting, we had to carry the raft on our heads uphill for about 100 metres to load it back on the jeep.

As I edit this piece a couple of weeks later, Agumbe reported heavy rains in the last week of July and the first week of August. My only complaint is that if we had gone there a couple of weeks later, the rafting would have given us a better thrill. Oh well, there is always a next time!