Access
Rat Tail Falls is considered inaccessible to the general public, as there is no road to it. The top of the falls is a rewarding and challenging hike destination. Hikers should be cautious, as two Western tourists were killed in 2006 when they fell from the top of the Falls.
It is possible to hike to the bottom of the falls in the dry season, beginning at the Manjalar Dam. This difficult hike proceeds along a path through Mango orchards and potato fields around the Manjalar Reservoir and up along the stream as far as a small shrine, dedicated to the Goddess Kamakshi. The legend is that Kamakshi was born here at the foot of the falls in a bamboo bush and hence she is called Moonkilanai Kamakshi. This place is called Amma Machhu, meaning in the middle of a grove of teak trees.
Beyond this point one must climb up along the stream, going up, over and around increasingly large boulders with difficulty, till arriving at the bottom of the falls, where there is a pool about 30 metres (98 ft) by 60 metres (200 ft). The return hike is more difficult. The full hike there and back covers about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) and takes a full day.
Manjalar Dam is at the end of Manjalar Road about 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) north from SH-36 at Devadanapatti town beginning along Kamatchi Amman temple road.
Read more about this topic: Thalaiyar Falls
Famous quotes containing the word access:
“A girl must allow others to share the responsibility for care, thus enabling others to care for her. She must learn how to care in ways appropriate to her age, her desires, and her needs; she then acts with authenticity. She must be allowed the freedom not to care; she then has access to a wide range of feelings and is able to care more fully.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.”
—Saul Bellow (b. 1915)
“Make thick my blood,
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)