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Exploring Waterfalls and Beaches in South India.

First Descent of the Hoggenakkal Falls.

It was a dry winter. Warm but dry. Not much to do but looking for water. As the ocean is a good bet to find at least some of it we were heading down south. No, it was not Mexico and it wasn’t Spain either but down south for us meant Goa in India.

Beaches are not the best hang out if there's no surf. So it was time to head out for some falls and research.

The Falls we were aiming at are situated on the Eastern Ghats of South India and are about 160km south of Bangalore. A very well build road gets you to this actually quite famous pilgrimage site and guesthouses, restaurants and shops will carter to your needs.

A short hike from the where we parked our rig a big arena of roughly 14 waterfalls and rapids showed.

Being the low water time we actually ran only two of the falls claiming first descents.

The river will also allow for some good whitewater in its upper reaches once the monsoon has filled the rivers up.

Andreas Sommer was leading a small team of friends from Nepal and India. The journey took them from Kathmandu in Nepal some 3500km to and through South India in search of epics. Some of them where found and some secrets are still kept for future explorations.

There are more details about this and other journeys on www.shivaoutdoors.com