Friday evening, no plans for the weekend. I thought why not start the weekend with a ride of 50-100 km. Posted for the same on BBC. Harsha replied that he and Naveen are riding to Nandi hills tomorrow. Though I was not looking for more than 100 km ride, still decided to join them.
Plan was to start at 5:00 am in the morning. But naveen faced some issue with his front wheel, so we started at 5:45 am from Marathalli bridge. Took a couple of break in between and reached Nandi hill base by 9:30 am. Naveen complained about having pain in his knee. We had breakfast at the base and then started the climb. It was my first time to Nandi hills. Somehow I managed to ride 4km. It gets more steeper as we go up. I talked to a auto and he agreed to carry my bike, so I got in to the auto and reached to the top. I realized that it was a good decision to take auto as climb gets much steeper in later half. Harsha and Naveen rode till there. We relaxed amid the beautiful greenish mountain.
Naveen told us that there is another hill Kalwarbetta nearby where people do night treking. Harsha asked can we go for it today, I said yes casually (I had no idea that we will actually end up there). Then we returned back to the base and had lunch there. There we seriously considered going there. We were very well aware that we are not prepared for staying in the night on the hill top. But it was perfect timing for night treking as it was a day before full moon and no chance of rain in the evening. Finally we decided to go for the treking.
Naveen got a puncture in the front wheel of his bike. He got it repaired at a shop there. Then we rode to Kalwara village. It is next to Muddenahalli village (birth place of Sir.M.Visweswaraih). On the way we bought some buiscuits, bananas and water bottles for the night. We reached Kalwara village by 5:30 pm. Harsha talked to a villager Ramanjneyappa and he agreed to keep our bikes in his cow shelter and locked it together. Then we started our treking.
By the time we reached at the base of the mountain, it was already getting dark. Luckily I had my bike headlight which we used as torch. We started climbing up the hill. There is a trail which goes up to the top. We followed the trail. At about half of the mountain we found a nice place to stay. Now the challening part was there. A nice cold breez was going on which initially felt very pleaseing as we were sweating due to climbing up but very soon we started feeling cold. Naveen's knee pain had also increased by now. Harsha collected some woods and we made a camp fire. Other than the cold breez, it was an amazing experience to be there on the hill. It was so peaceful out there. None of us could sleep due to cold so we spent the whole night around the camp fire. After 2:00 pm other groups of people started treking on the hill. At 3:30 am we started coming down the hill as it was a bit cloudy and foggy so there was no chance of getting to see the sunrise.
We reached the village at 5:30 pm, picked up our bikes. Naveen's bike got punctured again, he changed the tube. Naveen was hardly able to paddle the bike. Some how he managed till the place from where we take a turn to nandi hill. There we hired a TATA ACE and came back home.
It was really a crazy idea to spent the night at the hill without any preparation. But we managed well. Other than Naveen's knee pain every thing went really well.
Here are the pics of the trip.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=561381&id=532930516&l=cfef83338f
