Kallada River, Thenmala,Kollam,Kerala - Dry River Bed Photos

Kallada river landscape, Trees in river delta

River bed photo snaps, more clearly speaking the river landscape of an almost dry riverbed. The landscape which came visible when the dam upstream the river is closed seemed attractive to me and posting some of the photos here. The photographs are taken from a part of one of Kerala's beautiful western ghat river named Kallada.. The part of this river from where these photos are taken are considered 100 percent dangerous zone when the river is flowing with enough water and 50 percent dangerous even it's not without much water.

Our tour trip towards Thenmala eco tourism spots, parappar dam and the famous Palaruvi waterfalls was in the month of August 2010. Irony is it's the time of Monsoons and the river was seen almost empty. We just got down into the river bed for some snaps and any tourist or traveler happened to pass through here would have done it for the sight of the empty river bed is so interesting with much rocks and deltas of sand. Anyway the river was not fully dead as a small stream is finding its way through the rock filled river landscape calmly in deeper areas, and with a little violence in those places having some rock obstructions.

There was two different nature for the river landscape. One with huge rocks filled dangerous looks and other with small sand deltas and small trees giving the river a lovely scenic face. The huge river rocks are already posted in the river danger zone post and will be posted more soon, and wht you can see here is the soft and a little scenic landscape of the river terrain.

Trees in river delta filled with sands and rocks

The river course before this place is relatively narrower and deeper. It opens into a wider rock filled river course from here. The presence of rocks here naturally made way to the formation of sand and mud filled deltas. When the water level lowers the river gets compelled to flow in branches through the sides of this delta. The water is transparent and turns greener nearing to deeper river mouth. The stream is so calm and appears swimmable, but can't be sure coz the river bed is randomly filled with rocks.

Last time when i came here upto half of the tree in that river delta was under water and that's the usual water level. So many small fishes were there in the shallow water here. We didn't expect this river here to be empty for it's seen flowing full fledged in summer times too and we visited during the monsoons. We got the reason for the river being empty from a guy we met near the weir dam of Thenmala at Ottakkal lookout. 

The river is almost dry now coz the dam shutters are closed in the upper river course. The water flowing now comes from small mountain streams joining the river after the dam. The river usually flows filled with green water which matches the green lush forest in its banks. This river and the hydro projects built in river course are meant for Irrigation purposes and the oldest and one of the largest river irrigation project dam and canal system of Kerla is in this River. The Irrigation project is named Kallada Irrigation Project(KIP).

pure white clouds in sky over the marshy river landscape. Kallada river - Kerala

Sand and rock debris in the dry river bed. Small trees are seen growing in the river bed. Many of the trees that was growing in the deltas before now remains as broken tree trunks rooted in the soil with rocks around. Mainly this part of the river is filled with rocks, and the sand and mud is comparatively low. The delta of sand seen here actually lies over a big rock bed underneath.

The river bed shows how powerful the river current is underneath eventhough it appears very calm and slow outside when waterlevel is high. The topography of the river course is having such inclination and carries lot of debris and sand to lower lands.

Dried up tree trunks between the river rocks

The dry branches of some river tree found between the rocks in  river bed photographed during a walk through the river course. All these things will be immersed under water when the dam shutters are opened. 

Even boating through the surface water may turn dangerous as these things and huge pointed rocks lay silent underneath waiting to kiss your boat hull. Small canoes or country boats were seen tied on the shore and local people who is familiar with the riverbed obstructions seems using them.

After the place from where this snap is taken the path of the river is entirely covered with huge river rocks and polished river stones.

Kallada river's rocky landscape. Thenmala-Kollam-Kerala

The stream of Kallada divided by rocks in the riverbed. The rocks seemed sedimentary type ones, the usual river rocks which are not much stronger. But there were harder polished huge river rocks with so many potholes.

The rocks are of layered type and much soily in some places.The surface underneath water like in places seen in the photo is much slippery and you may happen to fall in the stream. What you have to do is watch your steps, if you wanna go back home!

lonely tree in river delta

You have to cross the river stream finding the shallow part to reach the deltas and huge river rocks. The tree found on that delta was interesting with much height and so many green glittering leaves at the top part. surely that tree head is seen over the waterlevel even when the dam shutters are open and the river's belly is full with water.

Due to the fast flowing nature of this mountain river so much sand and other debris are accumulated in the lower lands of its course. Sand mining was done without regulations in many parts of this river landscape and the river is getting the bad effects now. Strict regulations are taken now only to regulate the sand miners. Huge craters in the riverbed, river deviating its flow from its actual course, destruction of river sides etc keeps happening due to uncontrolled mining of sand from the riverbed.

Their are many close snaps of some interesting river rocks shaped by the weathering process yet to be published. We continued our journey to palaruvy waterfalls after this place and fortunately the dam shutters kept closed till we got out of the riverbed. Travel photos and tour spot infos will be continued in pixelshots, and you can have it when you visit this travel photo blog again.

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