The Trip to Kuntala Waterfall

I read about the Kuntala waterfalls near Nirmal more than a year back in some travel communities on Orkut and wanted to visit it since then. The time had finally come. The planning happened 3 weeks back but we were not sure if will happen even 3 days before the weekend. I was not well during the starting of the weekend but I wanted to go for this trip badly. So I somehow managed to get well before the weekend. We had a short meeting on Friday during tea and decided that we would meet at the station and 5.30 the next morning. I made it clear that if we cannot meet by 5.30, we are not going for the trip. I was the last one to arrive at the station :) and we finally managed to leave at exactly 6am. The Secunderabad station is not a good place to meet before a trip since it was so crowded and no place even to park the car. Though I have travelled on the Medchal road many times before, I still don’t know how to reach there from Paradise since I don’t go to the northern parts of the city that much. The roads of the cantonment area, Bowenpally, Sainik Puri and Alwal are like a maze to me. After backtracking a few wrong turns, we hit the Medchal road, NH7 to Nagpur at around 6.20 admiring the sunrise on our way. The roads were still empty, and nice (atleast some stretches of it) so we covered a lot in the first 1.5 hrs. The swiftie handled well fully loaded and gobbled up miles after miles of blacktop. We stopped at a place 100 kms from Hyd to have some breakfast. To our disappointment, we could not get dosa’s. We had to satisfy ourselves with idlies and some tea. We hit the road again but stopped soon for out first pisstop.

The highway had many detours and bad shoulder roads as there is some heavy highway construction going on. We drove nonstop for another 2 hrs. Just before Nirmal town, we saw a board of the Sriram Sagar Project (also known as Pochampad reservoir) and decided to pay a visit. It is around 2 kms inside from the highway. The narrow tar road was neat and welcoming but with really big speed bumps, one which scraped the bottom of my swiftie. After a quick stop and check, we headed forward. The big embankment had a nice curved road leading to the top of it (much bigger than the Singur Dam). We reached the top and were speechless. The reservoir was very HUGE with its peripheries not visible to the naked eye. There were some tiny islands visible near the horizon though. Its foundation stone laid by Jawaharlal Nehru. It is a dam on the Godavari River and provides water to most of the telangana region of AP. The sight was marvellous and out came the cameras. Even though it was very hot and sunny, the cool breeze was very pleasant. We walked till the gates but entry on the dam was restricted.

After few photos and enjoying the cool breeze, we were back on the highway after an hour and headed towards Nirmal.

Nirmal is a small town on the NH7 in the Adilabad district. This place is famous for its wooden toys. Hunger pangs had returned so we decided to a stop for some food. We drove till the end of the town looking for a nice eating place but there were none. So we headed back again to an Udipi tiffin center which looked decent. We finally got to eat some nice Dosa and Puri and also some double sweetened tea. Our initial plan was to visit all the places near Nirmal all day, stay back overnight and start back to Hyderabad the next day morning. But during b’fast we decided that if we are done with everything by 5pm, we would leave the same evening and be back to Hyderabad by night. I was also ready for it because the one way 210 kms journey was not that tiring. The only problem was that I was the only person who could drive in the group.

Anyvow, after a nice breakfast, we headed to the Pochera waterfall which was around 35 kms from Nirmal town. Once out of the town, we were surrounded by cool forest area and a ghat section road but the road was in such a horrible condition that all the fun and excitement of driving on a ghat road just vanished. Lots of heavy trucks for the highway construction activities made it even worst. But I was excited to spot a few Volvo and MAN tippers and trucks. I felt happy that even the trucking industry is on the move :)

The waterfall is 10 kms away from the highway. The tourism department has done some construction work near - landscaping, statues, hedges and plantation etc. It somehow didn’t look that good. We headed a few steps down towards the waterfalls. It wasn’t big and the water wasn’t clean. There were concrete steps leading towards the water. Some parts of it looked artificial. Like a little part of rock cut on purpose to create a smaller waterfall which fell into a man-made tank at the side. It wasn’t that impressive but was fun. The photo sessions began and I got an opportunity to stretch and sit under the shade of the rocks.




They were actually trying to catch some fish with their hands :)

We were here for around 45 mins and headed to the much bigger Kuntala falls. This one too was far inside from the main highway. The road was narrow with green paddy and jowar fields at both the sides.


The road then swept down into the valley and towards the Kuntala village. After the village, the road got narrower and much more green with huge trees on both sides.


It ended into a parking area from where we had to walk down to the waterfalls. There were 400 steps down into the valley to reach the water. We could hear the gushing water from well above the steps. The first glimpse of it was very beautiful. We stopped at a viewpoint on the steps and admired the beauty from above.



Ajay commented that it is very small for being the highest waterfalls in AP (and also since he had been to Jog fall just a couple of weeks back). We headed down. Once we were at the foot of the waterfalls, Ajay took back his comment. It looked, big, majestic and beautiful. The sight of it made us feel that it was worth the trip.






This waterfall has a history of bad incidents so there were security guys there to see to it that people are within the limits of the falls. We anyvow went quite close and had a nice photo session. We sat there for quite some time admiring the sights and sounds.

P.S: If the persons in the above picture happen to read this blog, and want to get a copy of the picture in its original size and without the watermark, you can mail me. My id is available in my profile.

After spending more than an hour here, we decided it was time to head back. The walk up the steps 400 steps was by far the most difficult thing we did the whole trip.By the time we were back in Nirmal over that horrible ghat road, it was 5. We stopped at the same Udipi hotel, had some dosas and puris again. There was a handicrafts shop just opposite to the hotel which had the world famous Nirmal toys made out of the soft Poniki wood. We did some shopping here (man, they are expensive) and decided to head back to Hyderabad.

By the time we started our return journey, it was 6 pm. We thought of covering as much distance as we can before it became dark. We were chatting generally and listening to music. By 6.30, it got dark and the headlights headache started. Driving in the night on the highways is such a horrifying experience. And added to it, the horrible road condition made it even worst. Most of the drivers don’t care to dip especially the bus drivers and city car drivers (majority of the city drivers don’t even what it means to dip lights at night). But this wasn’t new to me so there was nothing much to complaint. As we were driving, the Chevrolet Tavera which we spotted at the waterfall came in sight and we all got excited again :)

The next 2 hours were spent discussing about about movies, red and blue colors and lots of overtaking jugalbandi with the tavera on the night highway. We were stopped once at a police checkpost since it was a naxalite area but no checking happened maybe because we didn’t look like naxalites. We drove till 8.30 nonstop and it was high time we stopped. I badly needed to stretch. We stopped before Kamareddy and here is where we lost track of the Tavera. Tierdness and fatigue was starting to creep in and so was hunger. We decided to stop at the next Dhaba for dinner. The next dhaba came at 9 pm just before Tupran around 55 kms from Hyderabad. I had hardly slept for 4 hrs the previous night and got up at 4.30 in the morning so I was so sleepy by now that I could hardly stand up at the dhaba. People were looking at me with concern. So I decided I had to do something to get rid of the sleep. I went out in the cool breeze till the food arrived. A few phone calls, a walk under the night sky and a very tasty chicken curry along with tandoori naan did the trick. To top it off, a big cup of masala tea and I was back to normal. We started off towards Hyderabad at around 10.30.

The traffic heading towards Hyderabad was very less when compared to the oncoming traffic which meant continuous bright headlight glare. After 30 mins of driving, the tea effect vanished and I was yawning continuously and trying hard to keep my eyes open. Ajay sitting beside me was trying very hard not to fall asleep by doing some neck exercises and head banging. The other occupants were sliping in and out of sleep continuously. We finally entered the city limits at around 11.30. I dropped off Ajay, Anand and Deepak at Paradise, Kranthi at Patny and headed home. There was lots of police checkings happening since it was Saturday night and I wanted to avoid them since I was not even in a position to speak. So I took the Musheerabad road back home. After 18 hrs of nearly non-stop driving and 550 kms later, I fell on my bed at 12.30 like a log and got up today morning at 11 am.

Overall the trip was very exciting. The Sriram Sagar project and the Kuntala falls were worth the trip. This was my longest solo driving till date on a single day. Though I have travelled long distance by road before, there was always another person to take over the driving after a few hours. The swifie was amazing. Even with 5 adults, some luggage and the AC in full speed, it easily touched 120 without a sweat and did not loose its composure on the road. I am sure it would have gone much higher. I tried to calculate the mileage and I guess it was close to 15 though not accurate. It is more than what I had expected and I very happy about it. The only problem is that the stiff suspensions make the ride a bit bumpy on bad roads. But on smooth road, it was like gliding on clouds. The stiff suspensions have the advantage of high speed stability and good cornering. Even driving for 2 hrs without stopping was not that tiring. I loved every bit of the driving. All I could say after the end of the journey was – wow!!! what a trip and what a car !!!!!

TRIP INFO:
Place: Kuntala waterfall, Pochera waterfall, Sriram Sagar Project. Nirmal, Adilabad District, Andhra Pradesh, India
Distance: Nirmal – 210 kms from Hydearbad.
Waterfall – 25 – 40 kms from Nirmal
Route: NH7 – Nagpur Highway from Hydearbad
Paradise, Bowenpally, Medchal road – Medchal – Tupran – Kamareddi – Armur – Nirmal.
Road Condition: BAD. Lots of detours onto kacha shoulder roads because of construction work happening on the highway.
Car: Maruti Suzuki Swift Zxi , June 2008.

To signoff, here is the pic of the poniki wood deer heads I bought for mom from Nirmal. Arent are beautiful?

~ciao
NK

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