Biking in Bangalore's backyard - Part II

Well it has been long since I updated my blog... have been out twice since then... so thought I'd add remaining parts of the July 3rd outing with Anand.

From Muneshwara temple we proceeded on passing Sri Sri Ravishankar's Art of Living ashram and ahead towards Harohalli. As we were approaching Harohalli an interesting and funny incident happened.

There was this guy on a Honda Unicorn who was furiously following us and we stopped next to a lake for a breather and to take couple of pictures. The Honda guy stopped a little away and parked his bike and came back... patted Anand's gleaming Bullet and walked all round it. "Saar! Eshtu Mileage Barathe? (Sir, how much mileage does it give?)" he said. "30" said Anand to which his expression changed to a surprise and indignation. "Madras Motors Alli 40-45 kodutthe andhru," he retorted to which I remarked "No bullet will give you mileage above 35 km pl".

He then went on to recount his sob story of how he had purchased a Bullet and sold it after just 2 days because the bike's mileage just didn't cross 20 km pl. He had lost 15 K in the bargain and settled for a Honda Unicorn which was giving him 50 km pl.... We cursed him and told him if he had informed me or Anand one of us would have bought it... Anyway tough luck...

From there we proceeded to Kanakapur and then to Satnur through some beautiful countryside roads and quaint hills and also crossed a huge dam (will find out more about it later) to reach Dodda Halahalli where we turned right on the Sangam road and travelled for about 8 km and turned left at the Chunchi falls welcome arch. From here is it is about 8 km to the roaring waterfalls via narrow and confusing country roads.

Chunchi Falls

Chunchi Falls - rugged surroundings

The water fall is sited in a starkly rocky and rugged terrain. I haven't seen such rugged terrain anywhere around Bangalore. Even Ramanagar and Savandurga fade into oblivion when one looks at the stark landscape at Chunchi falls. Beautifully rugged and scary because one slip on these rocks would leave one with broken bones and bruised limbs and maybe even fatal as at some places the water is really deep between rocks.

Anand clicked some great pictures of the falls and surrounding countryside before heading back towards Satnur.

Me at Chunchi falls

From Satnur we decided to return to Bangalore on the Mysore road via Chennapatna, Ramnagar etc. But the first major place we reached was Kabbal village sited in the shadow of Kabbal Durga hill fort. The Kabballamma temple here attracts thousands of devotees during weekends. I visited Kabbal first in 1996 to participate in an advance rock climbing camp, where I had honed my rock climbing skills. At that time we stayed at Kabbal for four days and we noticed that there were hadly any visitors to the temple or the fort. This hill fort has by far some of the best routes even better than Savandurga and Ramanagaram. Perhaps due to its distance from Bangalore (100 km) and the remoteness (nearest decent hotel/ accommodation 22 km), Kabbal has not become popular among adventure tourists.

Kabbal durga hill fort

Now in 2006 the picture is totally different. Kabbal was full of vehicles, the road leading to the temple was almost choked with vehicles - 2, 3 and 4 wheelers of all brands, colours and types were there. The queue of pilgrims for darhsan was around half a km long. It is amazing how development transforms a quiet sleepy village into a teeming pilgrim centre in just a decade.

Since it was too hot in the afternoon we decided to skip climbing the fort, just took pictures of the temple, hill and couple of hero stones placed near the temple and started our journey towards Chennapatna and then further to Bangalore.

Kabbalamma Temple with the fort background