Castle Rock - love at first sight (12)

Note : Railway Diaries follows the Number on the Post Title

Life’s a journey and enroute you fall in love many a times with many a things and Castle Rock is one such destination which will hold you so tight with its serene beauty and untouched soul that you don’t want to come of that imprisonment.

Castle Rock is a small beautiful village which forms the border between the states Karnataka and Goa. The inhabitants are mostly families of railway men and forest guards. Surrounded by mountains and thick forest with a lot of streams that run through the forest, Castle Rock would be anybody’s love at first sight.

I was fortunate to have spent some wonderful moments of my life here. The railway station is one of the remains of the British establishment. You will also find a turn table for steam engines here.

A little bit of history here – British had the routes until Castle Rock and from Castle Rock they would transport all the goods by land to the port at Goa. Then one day they met this shepherd who showed them the route through the mountains to Kulem in Goa and on arrival at Kulem they shot the poor shepherd. And from then, they started laying the railway lines from Castle Rock to Kulem. They have left behind wonderful tunnels and bridges which are still healthy and would run another hundred years. The gradient at the start of the station from Castle rock to Kulem is 1:24, the steepest in the Indian Railways.

Opposite to the railway station you will find a building made of small bricks which is a monument in ruins and once upon a time owned by the Portuguese. Any train that would come from Goa to Karnataka will be taken into this building with only the entry and exit doors and the whole train would be searched for smuggling of gold. Offenders were shot if they tried to escape. And rumors have it that the jungle between Kulem and Castle Rock still has gold bricks thrown by smugglers and which they could not find again. This could be true because you can see a couple of trains in the valley which has not been restored (its mission impossible to take any machinery into the valley with the thick vegetation that the mountains possess).

Every season brings about a change in the weather and here it’s not only the weather it also gifts a new dress to nature. Leaves that turn from green to red to brown, the path of the streams that get dried and then runs as if in a race and the whole mountain that takes on a camouflage. Winter is the best of all that I have enjoyed here. The fog would be so thick that an object that is just two meters away will not be visible. When you stand at the door of the running train, the breeze that kisses your cheek and the mist that you feel on your skin and the cold pain that you experience when you do some mechanical work on the train are all reminders of how beautiful life is when you are a part of nature.

At the entrance to the Castle Rock is the Turva River and I shall cherish the moments spent here bathing or just watching it flow. I have had the best Jack fruit cutting it off myself from the tree, the best curds that had to be cut with a knife.

To visit Castle Rock you can catch a goods train or any passenger from Londa and you can get to Londa by any train that’s running from Hubli to Vasco or Hubli to Belgaum. Best place to trek and get lost in the wilderness. I wish I had a camera when I was in railways to capture all of Castle Rocks emotions.

I shall visit this place before death just to say “I love you Castle Rock “.