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10 Years After! Another day on the Kali River.

It is a Sunday morning and 30 excited people are climbing into jeeps for the ride up the Kali River valley to Ganeshgudi, in North Karnataka. They are heading to the start point of our rafting trips under the shadow of the 101 metre high Supa Dam. This is the first of 3 trips today and a far cry from December 1999 when we had been known to send 5 river guides to paddle the 14kms of rapids just to entertain one fine rafter. A ratio of 5 staff to one guest was not really the recipe for healthy business, but we did not care since those were the days when we used to say, “lets remember these days because it will never be like this again” and it never was. Sitting on the porch of our tents reciting our motto, “No guest … Full rest”. So as we now see, on a relatively quiet weekend in March 2010, the Kali River attracts anything from 50 to 350 people each weekend eager to enjoy the experience of Rafting the Kali River. It has indeed come along way.

Back in 1997 I was courting Jungle Lodges & Resorts as a partner for the Kali. They being a Government undertaking, would help in all things official. They were well managed and had a famous wildlife property at Kabbini River Lodge. They were a rare success story. Most of all, they had a strategically well located property on the Kali River which was making a loss, just waiting for something to happen, and it did.

So on December 12th 1999 my self, along with 2 other accomplished Austrian river guides, put our boats out on the Kali, took a small group of rather amazed British tourists down the rapids between Ganeshgudi and Dandeli and never looked back. Jungle Lodges property went steadily through the roof and South India finally got it’s white water rafting. Nobody would ever have to be told to “go to Rishikesh” again. Dandeli was now on the map and quickly became the best known Adventure Tourism destination in South India.

The Kali river has a maximum raftable stretch of 14kms with more than a rapid every kilometre and the better rapids are in the first 9 kms. This is the perfect length trip through mind blowing forest, thriving birdlife and animals, crystal clear waters and a healthy frequency of nice technical class 2 to 3 rapids. Ideal for the Foreign or Indian Adventure tourist with exciting drops, bouncing waves surroundings to die for and never a dull moment on the water. For city folk in Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai the thrill of the river just got closer and no longer need to go all the way to North India. And so it went on and couldn’t possibly fail to catch on, as I knew it would all along.

Now as we enter the summer of 2010 and look back on our 10 years on the Kali, we realise that nearly 40,000 people have safely taken a rafting trip down the river with us. Many people never thought they would. Many did not think there was such a beautiful, unpolluted, pristine river with falls and gushing rapids amidst a surreal landscape that they can actually paddle down. Many people did not know a life jacket would keep them afloat, nor did they know that it was sweet water and not salt water that flowed in the Kali. Many did not know that I was a foreigner. I guess they just thought I was fair, such is my appetite for all things South Indian. But one thing they all knew afterwards, was that they had a great time and what they had experienced was something they would never forget. The guests would often come back long before the memories were forgotten. If people end up feeling like this after a rafting trip with us then it is surely a job worth doing and one worth loving to do. It certainly beats my engineering days in the confines of an office back in the late 80’s and early 90’s!

Since the Kali opened its beautiful river banks to our rafts we have pioneered many other new rafting stretches in peninsular Southern India. The Kundalika River in Maharashtra, the Cauvery River in Coorg, the Barapole in Coorg and now the Mahdei in Goa. The Mahdei in Goa is likely to be a focus for us during the monsoon months of 2010 and for the next few years, since we are now based in the state of Goa. It is a genuinely stunning river and possibly the best yet given the correct water levels. Watch this space!

I am sure Southern River Adventures journey is not yet over. One wonders what the next 10 years will bring. Hopefully more rivers, more forest, and many more wide smiling faces getting drenched by waves.

We will see you on the river again. I am sure.

Wish you all good boating.