A bit about our destination first - exerpt taken from wikipedia - Kodachadri is a mountain peak (altitude - 1343 m above sea level) in the Western Ghats in South India (Karnataka State). The name is a corruption of the Sanskrit word "Kutakachalam." In local Kannada language, it is also called Kodashi Parvatha. Kodachadri forms a picturesque background to the famous temple of Mookambika in Kollur. Situated in the middle of the Mookambika National Park,it is home to several endemic and endangered species of flora and fauna. The rain forests loom in a perpetual layer of mist around the peak. Around peak, shola forest is also there. This peak is where 'Shankaracharya' did meditation. You will find an ancient Sarvajna Peetha, (built out of rock) of Sri Shankaracharya at the top. It is also an excellent locale for Trekkers and backpackers.it is approx 420+ Kms from bangalore
After our last trip (me and Arun) lot of our colleagues showed interest in joining a week end ride , we dutifully sent invites to all of them for this ride.
As usual none of them showed at last moment! We stick to the plan and started on another saturday morning 6 AM.We had our breakfast at CCD tumkur and reached nagar , stopped at the nagara fort enroute to take few snaps and pushed off to kodachadri. Little ahead of Nagara there is a right turn you need to take to reach kodachadri Direction board in english is present). If you are going by car you need to stay in Kollur and jeeps are available to take you to Kodachadri. The route is pretty rough especially in rains but bikes and jeep can make it. It was raining till the day before we reached and the muddy road was pretty challenging to negotiate. I had to ask my friend to start trek as riding with pillion was becomming me increasingly frustrating , once he started walking along the mountains I zoomed up and it was a straight go for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of riding this hill, it was pretty fun. I stopped at a junction where the trek route joined and started waiting for Arun to join. Mean while Arun got chased by a wild bull and lost his path.it was getting darker and suddenly mist sorrounded every where , few mins I waited patiently and then started calling my friend name, no response !!!.
3 jeeps passed by none of them bothered to stop and check out , I started walking in the trek route completely filled in fog shouting my friends name , once i reached a peak i got a response back feeling relieved started to figure out where he was , due to fog he couldn't see me. i notice him and started giving him directions finally he made it after 10 - 15 mins
it is already dark and we have 3 more kms to go! somehow managed to reach the top and checked out the IB bunglow , they refused accomodation. we checked with petty shops near temple and they had arranged a room for us to stay. had nice food and bought some chakli , the room has no electricity. we walked a bit in the trek route and crashed to bed (or matres!) to catch some sleep
Next morning we started trekking to sankaracharya temple , beautiful and calm place . We had a nice little chat with poojari there , nice man. Bought some honey there (pretty tasty btw) came down had nice breakfast (wheat upma ). we paid 150 for stay and 2 course food for both of us , man should i say that is cheap!
we started our descend. we reached kollur around noon , had bath , food and dharshan and back to bangalore
Ride: Avenger 180
Kms: close to 900 ( i reset my trip meter near neelamagala in day 1 , it was 866 when i reached bangalore)
Route taken: Bangalore - kadur - birur - hosanagara - nagar - kodachadri - kollur - sidhapura - theerthahalli - shimoga - bangalore
Date : Sep 27 - 28 , 2008
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