Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Kadamparai Dam and downhill - Valparai!

Day5: Dec 27, 2008

By 9 in morning we stared to climb down the valparai hills after taking some pictures with our relative’s whom accommodate us throughout the stay and some kind of love, to greet us again. I haven’t ever fascinate with such colorful flowers treated my eyes and sense this much like those in the garden home we stayed. It’s bitter to know the group took control the home next day plucked all the flowers that bloomed and smiled at me to reflect. The flower pictures I shared here are those taken at the garden. With half a mind, I left the place saying bye to twitter sweet birds that welcomes morning, the blowing wind in fragrance of tea and the warm gave sunshine. Sign by boards, I peer along the way around the trees where lion tail monkeys are yet to leap. At last with little disappointment we found the elephants near Shivaji estate – belong to late actor Shivaji Ganeshan, and where a couple roaming far away the hill and later to have a group of elephants below the valley and inside the shrubs.
Couple of elephants
40/40 Hairpin bend
After having cuppa in the waterfalls estate - the last tea garden within valparai before climbing down, we turned right near the 20th hairpin bend that head to Kadamparai Dam. The dam was within a distance of 15/20km, and the road lead between teak forest and Tiger valley. We were stopped by a check post and after hardly convincing the old lady, who was in charge, the block was opened and we passed the upper Aliyar and reached the Kadamparai Power house gateway. This was a power house situated at an invisible site inside the hills! It was a 6km tunnel carved in a single rock, with a passage of two Lorries to come and go! Awe… it was interesting to know the main process of this Power house is to recycle the dam water and generate Hydro Electric power. The very special about this was the recycling process. Throughout day the water from Kadamparai dam is open to generate electricity and throughout night, half the current stored are spend to recycle the water from Upper Aliyar to Kadamparai dam. It was like up to down and down to up.
Kadamparai Power House.
Kadamparai Dam tunnel
It was highly restricted and very special permission is needed to go inside the tunnel. Those who have went and came, and who recommend us to visit sounds awesome about the silence and fearful noise, to experience never before and to a multi theater effect. As we had some other plan, we couldn’t visit the Kadamparai dam, which was few km above from the power house gateway. As I have lost the pictures I was covering while climbing up valparai hills, I wish to recapture those scenes and stopped at few places, where the one was Lomes view. From here one get a wonderful view of Aliyar Dam and the zigzag dreadful hairpin bends, and from here above the hill were the only place in valparai I saw the Nilgiri Thar. These are some goats, rarely seen on Western Ghats at the least existence.

There are few waterfalls on the way, the water that arrives from Parambikulam dam in Kerala. One of the falls was such forceful and drizzle on the road, the other with little showers left the children to enjoy. If you remember the Sholayar dams, the water that runs through Kerala and into Parambikulam dam is diverted again into Tamil Nadu and what rushes here as falls. This water is also diverted to Thirumoorthi and Amaravathi Dams. It was a sunny day and as per our plan we head to Thirumoorthi Dam and falls, about 35km from the foot hills. After having lunch at a small town – Tali, and leaving my parents and other to let shower, we spent sometime near the dam banks where lot of people where cooking and taking boat ride on the dam. The place near the falls are much crowded like a village festival and many busses and cab vehicles enter and exit continually wanted me to get away as soon. By evening we visited the Amaravathi Dam! That could be a separate post soon…

Nilgiri Thar
Water falls

20 comments:

Priya said...

Amazing pictures and the water effect is too good. I am learning a lot about Valparai and thanks Jeevan for sharing.

Preetilata【ツ】 said...

amazingggggg pictures. and the description is beautiful.

Miladysa said...

Fantastic!

It must be a wonderful experience to see wild elephants :D

The last photograph is exceptional - I think you should enter it into a competition some time!

Yamini Meduri said...

description is at the best....and added to it are the wonderful pictures...!!!

i loved the last pic..!!!

u must of njoyed the scenic beauty..!!!

:) keep smiling Jeevan..!!!

Keshi said...

AMAZING pics Jeevan! How r ya? :)

Came to check on ya mate.

Keshi.

Dawn said...

Awesome pics dear...I must say ...you have taken all of us closer to mother nature :)
Thanks a lot
Cheers

Shuuro said...

very nice pictures jeevan, thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Shionge said...

Hey I love the rush of the water falls...fantasstic :D

Devika Jyothi said...

Good read, Jeevan
and wonderful photographs..expecially the last :)

wishes,
devika

Rakesh Vanamali said...

This is one place I definitely wanna go! I will someday for sure!

Great post with some very good pictures!

Thanks for sharing!

Annie Wicking said...

Thank you for sharing this with us, Jeevan. You have broken my dream. I dreamt about elephants the other night and wondered why, because it not as though I see them everyday. How wonderful to see them living so free and wild.

It must have been wonderful to go into such a deep tunnel, though a little scary for me.

Best wishes & (((Hugs)))

Annie

Ash said...

The elephants are amazing....and so is the water shot!

Great pictures, Jeevan

Marutham said...

WOW Jeevan... this is awesome! :D

Esply the LAST PIC.... Full of life!

Just so beautiful :)

You sure have had a great time..dnt u? :)


Cheers,
Marutham

Vishesh said...

awesome :D

humanobserver said...

What a place you are living man ! Mindblowing. It is full of greenary.

Meghna said...

nice pics bro....ur travelloges r so interesting...I too am going south this may...yipppeee :)

Unknown said...

Hi,
you could have elaborated about the kadamparai power project more as it is one of the prestigeous project of not only India but the world.The technical name of the project is Pumped storage scheme & for my knowledge it is the worlds second largest having it capacity of power generation next to Germany(not sure) of this pumped storage scheme.The project is pride of the nation hardly anyone knows how it works & where it is..i would insist government to initiate campaign about this project to public.Moreover it is very hard to get permission to enter into the 6km tunnel to reach the power plant inside the hill. I am lucky , i had been there once!!!

Try your best as you can have lot of surprises behind the project..

G&AM said...

Another excellent post

Sankar said...

@ dhinex
U were right, it is more prestigious & most risky hydro power project, in which the design is borrowed from germany but the execution & operation failed there but our engineers made it a successful one here.my father worked in this underground tunnel & hydro power project as an engineer when i was a child.This really inspired me later in my life to do my engineering at IIT

Akshara desai said...

That's really a good idea. Thanks for sharing this useful information with us.You can contact Precision Drawell Pvt Ltd website for Steel Fiber For Hydro Projects Tunnel.