Gayatri Waterfalls, Adilabad District, AndhraPradesh

The only waterfalls I know in adilabad were Kuntala and Pochera Waterfalls until I came across the website www.nirmalcity.com a year ago.  It is through this website I came to know about Gayatri waterfalls, Kanakai waterfalls and other interesting places in adilabad district.

Nirmal city website was launched by Mr. Praveen Indoori, who was born and brought up in this small town of Nirmal, a great land of art and crafts. Inspired by art at every step of his life and with a burning desire of giving back something to art and art related made him start www.nirmalcity.com to bring forth the grandeur of Nirmal toys, paintings and tourist attractions in front of the world.

About Gayatri WaterFalls

Gayatri Gundam

                 Gayatri waterfalls, a very less known waterfall is on Kadem River, a tributary of Godavari River. It is located at a very secluded place inside deep forest and at a distance of approximately 5KM from Tarnam Khurd, a village near Neredigonda in Adilabad district. Gayatri waterfall is also called as Gadidha Gundam or Mukdi Gundam by villagers. It Is a wonderful sight to see this waterfall plunging down 100ft into the valley to create this magnificent beauty.

How to Reach?

Neredigonda is 257Kms from Hyderabad on the way to adilabad on National Highway 7. Kupti village comes after 6Kms where you will find sign board for Tarnam village on the right side. Turn right from here and drive for 2Kms on dirt road to reach Tarnam Khurd village.

View Larger Map

One can go by vehicle only till Tarnam. From here we need to go on foot for 5 Kms to reach waterfalls. You can ask for a guide in the village.  Make sure you are accompanied by a villager, else you might get lost in jungle.

OUR TRIP:

Ever since I came to know about the beautiful Gayatri waterfalls I was planning to visit the place on my Bike but ended up with change of plans due to bad weather and some other reasons on couple of occasions. With the end of Monsoon by start of October, I thought I have to wait one more year till next monsoon to visit the waterfalls. With heavy rainfall in the second half of October all over Andhrapradesh, I have decided do visit both kanakai and Gayatri waterfalls in last week. I planned it for a 2 days trip. I have called Praveen Indoori for guidance and he gave us few pointers that helped us in this trip. Dinesh and Arif also joined me and we decided to leave by Dinesh’s car on 29^th early morning 4 AM.

Dinesh.... Myself ... Arif

Drive on NH7:

We started an hour late and Dinesh picked me and arif from my room and soon we are on our way to Adilabad. Since we are travelling by car we didn’t mind carrying extra luggage. We dumped the entire luggage in dicky including my Quechua T3 tent, couple of tarpaulin sheets, sleeping bags and our bags. It was very cool and pleasant weather early in the morning. Once we crossed city the environment gradually changed a lot and now it’s only the mist that we can see around. It simply looked like we are speeding through the clouds. The scene became even more beautiful with the first rays of SUN spreading all over with gentle warmth. Everything seems glittering like gold and reflecting. We stopped for breakfast at a highway restaurant named ZYKA restaurant and tried idly, wada and Dosa. It’s neatly maintained and the breakfast was also tasty. Within half an hour we are back on wheels again.

Some interesting places that attracted us on our way were couple of ruined forts by the side of highway and some hills which looked like a huge heap of rocks put at a place. We decided to explore those places on our next visit which will be a bike ride. As soon as we crossed nirmal I started looking out for kortikal waterfalls which was mentioned in the website. We saw small waterfall by the side of highway to our left after crossing kortikal B village. We stopped at Neredigonda to buy water bottles and some snacks. We had paid 260Rs for Toll alone at four toll gates till we reached Tarnam. We stopped at Kupti village and asked a person for direction to Tarnam. Luckily he too has to go to Tarnam. We gave him lift and told him that we came to visit waterfalls and need a villager to accompany us. As soon as we reached village he introduced us to their Patel. We asked him for a villager to show us waterfalls. He told Rajanna to go with us and show the way to waterfalls and asked us to pay him at the end of day.

Our trek to waterfalls: 

We parked our car near Patels shop. Quickly picked my camera and water bottles to carry in a small bag and followed Rajanna. From here we have to go by foot. After walking for few minutes we came across a water stream. It is one of the rivulets of Kadem River. We crossed the stream with not much difficulty. From here onwards it was a plain walk of almost half an hour on a trail cutting through cotton and soya fields. The next half an hour was through the jungle crossing couple of small streams.

Kadem river that we crossed

Dirt Trail leading into dense forest

Trail formed by bullock carts

Beautiful grasslands on our way

Entering into jungle after the fields

Descent through rocky water trail into Gayatri gundam

At one point Rajanna told us he will take us to the bottom of the waterfalls first and top view later. We started descending down carefully on the rocks which is actually a water trail. The rocks were slippery and rajanna was prompting to be careful all the time.

@ Gayatri Waterfalls

After a good amount of decent we found ourself in a deep valley surrounded by hills on all directions. And here we are standing infront of Gayatri waterfalls with a huge pool under it. It was an amazing sight to see. We can feel the drizzle of waterfall from the place we stood. We clicked many pics here. I took a stick of about 7 feet and tried to check the depth between two rocks that were submerged. It had gone almost 6ft inside water. Someone might get stuck between rocks or get injured if they try to swim and it was too slippery on those submerged rocks. As the depth is very unpredictable we didn’t dare to go near waterfalls. By now it was almost 1:30 pm and the rocks were heated up like anything. Meanwhile Dinesh started climbing the rock patches next to the waterfalls and sat there for a while before he started feeling the heat of rock. He was exhausted by the time he got down and his palms turned red because of burning rocks. We spent almost an hour and half here taking pictures and relaxing under shade.

Vertical panaroma view of Gayatri Waterfalls

Cute elevated Hut besides waterfalls

Top portions of water stream before it plunges into Gundam

At around 2:30 we started climbing back to the top. Rajanna took us through a shortcut to the top and we entered a cotton field. There is a small elevated hut at one corner of the field which looked so cute. For a moment I felt jealous of those who are living in such a beautiful environment right besides a waterfall. After crossing the field we saw the stream that was flowing down. I decided to have a dip here. We found a shady place and decided to relax for some time and later enjoy the Jacuzzi in water. While Arif and dinesh settled down I went further ahead to see the side view of the waterfalls. I had to go till a slopy edge of the rock to get full view of waterfalls. With some difficulty I hung there for few minutes and I had captured video and a vertical panaroma of waterfall from top to bottom. The climb back was tough because of burning rocks and the afternoon heat. I was completely exhausted by the time I came back and collapsed under the tree. We slept for more than half an hour here. We had a nice Jacuzzi bath in the stream. Inspite of burning sun, the water in the stream was cold and we spent an hour in the water before we started back for village. On our way back we captured some nice pics of the fields and grasslands which were glowing during the golden hour of Sunset.

Flowing at full pace

Just for FUN :)

Glittering Golden Hour of Sunset

Glittering Grasslands

Night Camping in the Village:

Our Tent Lighted up under Stars.....

It was around 6 in the evening by the time we are back in the village. By now we were very hungry as we didn’t have lunch in the afternoon. We asked Patel about any place where we can have dinner. He told us that there is a dhaba on highway before ichoda which serves tasty food. He also told us that we can camp in the school compound. We told him about our next day’s plan of visiting kanakai waterfalls and he suggested taking rajanna with us as he could be helpful. We said we will meet him next day morning and left for dhaba. We had roti, fried rice and curd rice for dinner. The food was just average and didn’t met our expectations. By the time we are back in the village almost half of the village was asleep and there is hardly any one seen outside. We pitched our tent in the middle of the ground. Arif had setup his camera for capturing star trails with our illuminated tent in the foreground. We did star gazing while dinesh explained about few stars with an App in his mobile. After sometime we went inside tent as we felt very sleepy and dozed off in no time. In the middle of the night it turned very cold because of heavy dew outside. I sneeked into my sleeping which gave me enough warmth for a sound sleep besides the snoaring sounds of Dinesh.

Please find below link of our next day trek to Kanakai waterfalls.....
Link : Day2 : Our Trek to Kanakai waterfalls