It was a long weekend when me and my friend decided to travel on a road trip and this time it was western ghats. From long time I had this place in my mind but was waiting for the right time to travel as the rainfall is too heavy during monsoon and too many landslides because of which the road get blocked for hours. The shiradi ghat road will be pretty bad throught the year because of which we can expect lots of accidents and road blocks.
It was summer and pre monsoon thought its the right time to travel, packed our bags hit the road early morning 5AM. Started our journey towards Mullayangiri which is approx 260+ KM from Bengaluru. Stopped over for a breakfast near channarayapattana had 2 idly and a coffee and rode towards Chikmaglore. One more pitstop near Chikmaglore for a drink ( Tender coconut ) in the hot hot weather. We reached Mullayangiri peak around 12PM. It was a beautiful scenic place our bulls enjoyed the terrain. It was unexpected foggy afternoon in summer and we just took a walk on a rock for rest. Stayed there for an hour or so and started our journey towards Sringeri. Had to pass on towards Chikmaglore city, stopped over for lunch as it would easily take 3 hours for our next destination. After lunch we hit the road towards Sringeri, the roads were really good nice twists and turns in ghat section and finally around evening 4 we reached Sringeri.
Went for darshan at temple, there is lake on the other side of temple where people usually take bath or feed the fishes. Took some time for our self and started watching the places. Went to temple and we were about to start to our next destination i.e Agumbe it started raining. We got to know we cannot make it up for Agumbe sunset as it was very cloudy reached our friends home which was around 20KM from sringeri and halted for the day.
We had a very warm welcome by the family, Aunt prepared Tea and we changed our self had some conversation with the family.
Next day we started toward Agumbe had to refill gas for our bikes stopped over in the nearest gas station. It was again around 20KM to Agumbe from our friends house, we just had to enjoy the nature stopped over for few minutes took some snap and started towards Hornadu. We enjoyed the hair pin bends from Agumbe, rode towards karkala and Kudremukh forest. Had to stop over kudremukh forest for vehicle pass, the ride was beautiful inside kudremukh forest range our bulls was at its best and reached our destination Hornadu. Had lunch took some break and started towards Dharmasthala which was our next destination. Started around afternoon and reached Dharmasthala around 6PM in the evening. Faced some challenges in getting accomodation, finally got after a great difficulty. Got fresh and went for Sri Manjunath swamy darshan post which had dinner and rested.
Next day started around 6.30AM towards kukke subramanya, it had rained last night and the trees on the side of the roads were lush green. It was the right time for a ride on the road reached kukke had breakfast and then we started towards Coorg. Reached afternoon to coorg had lunch took rest for some time and we started towards Dubare Elephant camp. Reached around 4 in the evening the water level was pretty less in the river could easily walk from one end to other end and reached the camp. Elephants would be usually trained during mornings and elephant safari will take place between 10AM to 12PM. couple of elephants were sent back to their shelter and 2 of them were left them free with the chains tied. spent some time and took couple of shots in the camp and left back to bangalore.
Overall we clocked around 1200KM round trip felt it was so soon we reached back to our destination. As we say "Its not the destination, its about the Ride"
Below are the routes which we covered during our ride
Bangalore, Chikmaglore, Mullayangiri, sringeri, agumbe, kudremukh forest, hornadu, dharmasthala, kukke, madikeri, Dubare elephant camp & return to Bangalore
