bheemeshwari - River Rafting

At last, got a chance to try out river rafting. Anitha, Dad and I went to Bheemeeshwari for river rafting yesterday (1st nov 2009). This trip was decided on only the previous day, that too at about 10p.m. Nothing was sure. We didn't know if we would get a chance to do it as we hadn't registered earlier. I called up CARE India (Out-door adventurers) and they were very helpful. They said that we could come down and that we would get to do it. But there was a problem. I hadn't met anyone from CARE before and there is no cell coverage at Bhimeeshwari. So if we did get there on our own, we didn't know how to contact. Parmesh was the guy from CARE who was coordinting this event. So the previous night I told him that we would meet up on 1st before 6am so that he could tell us when we should get there. There are 3 batches per day and apparently the first two was full. Late at night, he called up and fixed up a place in jayanagar to meet. The day of the activity - We left home at about 6:15am. We reached jayanagar at 6:30am. Met Parmesh, paid the Rs. 3000/ - (1000X3 people) and left to Bhimeeshwari by our Maruti Alto :). I decided to have breakfast at Kanakpura. I had gone to a good place there during my trek from sangama to muthathi. To our bad luck, the hotel was closed. So we continued towards Sathanur. Here we found a small road side shop and decided to stop there for breakfast. We had 3 plates of thatte idly's and 2 tea's. Can you guess how much it costed? Well it costed us Rs. 27. After the short stop there, we continued to Bhimeeshwari (also called Cauvery Fishing Camp). Once we reached there, we went towards the office and talked to the concerned person, one Mr. Siddaraju. We filled up forms there and were asked to wait. All four rafts had to start together. So it was a long wait from 9:30am to 11:20am.We went around the camp and had fun. The "pictures" will give you a better picture. Once we were 22 of us (6*4 rafts), we strapped the life jacket and wore the helmet (suited up :) ). Some pictures after this and we had to give the camera to the instructor. He had put everyone's camera and other stuff into a water proof bag. After a some basic lessons of rafting, paddling and emergency procedures, we set off on the rafting trip. 8km stretch with about 5 rapids. Since we went in end of Oct/Start of Nov, the rains had already stopped and rafting season was coming to an end. The rapids were not much. Here max. rapids are of Grade - 2 and Grade 2+. The instructors were from Rishikesh.

We had a great time paddling, the small rapids and most of all, everyone of us jumped into the river. We had life jackets so trusted our lives on it. :) . We floated along the raft downstream. After a will, after enjoying and trying to swim, we got back into the raft. Another rapid or two, we finished the 8km stretch. Got into the jeeps waiting for us. This took us back to the base camp. We reached base camp at 2:00pm. Had a great lunch (Lunch inclusive of the 1000rs). That's it, bid good bye to the others and left. Next destination - Home.. We reached home at 5pm.