Yeleswaragutta aka Mysterious Island

This is my second post on yeleswaragutta, popularly known as Mysterious island. Two year back I visited this place in peak summer, but was unable to reach till top of the hill because of the dehydration and unavailability of water. This time we planed perfectly and strongly determined to reach till top at any cost. I recommend reading my previous post on mysterious island: http://www.mytraveltales.in/2012/05/trek-to-mysterious-island.html before reading this post.

From the past few days i was asking my friend prakash, whether he can accompany me to visit this beautiful place. But he was so busy with office work and told me that he can't able to make it. So i thought of visiting this place alone and finalized the plan. On the day before shivrathri, he called me and told that he will join me for the trip. I immediately blocked bus tickets from Hyderabad to macherla. Prakash contacted some people in anupu and confirmed that boats availability. BTW, Prakash lead the team when we visited this place last time.

Our plan: Reach anupu by 11am (either from macherla or nagarjuna sagar right bank), reach yeleswaragutta, complete trek by 5pm, return to macherla, reach Hyderabad by 12pm.

I woke up at around 4 in the morning, went to prakash's home and together we reached mgbs by 6am. Bus was supposed to start at 6.30 am, but got delayed by almost 1 hour. We reached nagarjuna sagar by 10am, but we were not sure whether we have to get down at macherla or right bank. When we reached sagar right bank bus stop, we noticed two autos going towards right bank. We immediately get down and asked auto driver whether he can take us to anupu. He charged 120 rs and took us to anupu. Reaching anupu from nagarjuna sagar right bank is the nearest and best route.

When we reached anupu, there were less crowd than I expected. We bought the boat tickets(100rs round trip) and boarded the boat at around 11am. I should appreciate APTDC for operating boat services for the entire day to and from yeleswaragutta during shivarathri. After a scenic drive for 30 mins, we reached yeleswaragutta.

Even though transportation and food arrangements are good, path to reach the top is still very basic. Steps were narrow and slippery. As I didn't ate anything from last afternoon, I faced difficulty in climbing. I started dehydrating, suffered from head ache and nausea. I did many treks, but i never faced this kind of problems in climbing. After taking so many pit stops, I reached the first temple and thought that I reached the top. But that is not the main temple and we have to climb for another 10 mins to reach there. Finally I reached the main temple at around 1.30pm. Temple is so small and it was very dark inside.

After darshan, I climbed down and reached the first temple. From here you will get 360 degrees view of nagarjuna sagar back water. Views are amazing. We spent almost 1 hour enjoying stunning views of sagar back water. It took just 30 mins to climb down the hill, but waited for almost 1 hour near the launch station due to the unavailability of boats. As there is no boat from the past 2 hours, there was so many people awaiting near the launch station and when the boat came, people started pushing each other. Luckily police came and controlled the crowd. I felt that getting into the boat was much difficult than the climbing the hill.

We reached anupu by 5.30PM, and boarded the auto to macherla. It was around 20 km from anupu to macherla and it took 30 mins to reach macherla. We reached macherla, had dinner and boarded the bus to Hyderabad at 8.30PM. We both were very happy that we were able to complete the trek which was pending from the past two years. But we missed the camping and sunset, probably we will plan again in next few months.