Sitting in a extremely slow moving bus on a jam packed
corporation circle after a freak of a day at office is exactly the reason why I
want to get out of this , the best way is to pack up the bags pickup those keys
and ride , though to an unknown destination would be ideal but nothing to take
away if the known destination is as stunning as the Conoor . Emerald lake and the ride to
Avalanche can have me there over and over again.
The long weekend was awaiting, Oct 2nd being a national
holiday meant three days off and I and Aashu quickly decided we gonna ride to
Pondy , but somehow at the last minute I decided to ride to Conoor. I booked my
Homestay using #yatra.com , my
company was providing us 15% off on all the bookings done through yatra ,
and I used this opportunity to book the homestay , generally I never do pre
booking of rooms , but with wife with me and the experience of last ride I
decided to prebook a homestay . As I was a first time visitor at yatra I got a
25% off on my booking and i booked a homestay called Aldivino which is
just 1.5kms away from sims park in Conoor.
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| View From the Homestay |
We started our ride at 6.30am and it started drizzling, but fortunately
as we reached Mysore road the rain subsided making way for an awesome
weather to ride. The excitement was short lived , Mysore road with heavy
traffic , speed humps , road obstacles is a pain to ride , really can’t
understand what is the need for so many obstacles at every 25kms which piles on
the traffic , and the long weekend made the situation worse , but still I was
doing good speeds , we stopped for breakfast at Kamath in Channapatana and
reached Mysore city at
10.30am , from Mysore city to reach
Gundlupet is another task , bad under construction roads and bad traffic make
matter worse , always advisable to avoid this road and instead take Bangalore-Kanakapura-Chamarajanagara(NH 209)-Gundlupet if you are travelling to Ooty,Sultan battery ,Waynad etc , which I did on my return leg.
After an irritating ride from Mysore to
Bandipur , we entered the Bandipur forest , the forest welcomed us , the
vegetation was thick and it looked beautiful as ever , loads of birds and deer’s
on the way and we reached to Kalhatti ghat passing the charming Madhumalai
tiger
reserve and Masinagudi , the 36 hairpin
bends of Kalhatti Ghat is a treat to a rider , the curves are sharp and steep
and the route is breathtakingly scenic , the AS200 was beautiful on the curves
and I must give credit to Aashu for holding her nerves in the curves , I just
love speeding in the curves I know it’s not a good riding habit but it’s
difficult to stop myself .
2pm we reached Ooty , had our lunch at Ooty
and headed straight to Conoor which is 19kms from Ooty city.We reached Conoor
at 3pm post our lunch and our very friendly host
guided us to the home stay. Aldivino homestay was awesome , in a beautiful
locale , very clean , nothing fancy
but well maintained , a very good host and a very humble room service guy. We
took a much needed hot water bath , rested for a while and went to swamy&swamy
tea factory at Sims Park , I love this place , the place has some great views
and an ideal place to photograph sunset. We spent some quality time at the tea
fields photographing, came back to our homestay and zzzzzz.....
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| The Old World Charm |
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| The Old World Charm |
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| The Lovely Golden Hour |
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| The Beautiful Contrasts of Nature |
I stopped over at many places on the way to
take photographs and as I was photographing I saw a few guys playing near the
emerald lake below , a couple of times before I had been to emerald I was not
allowed to go near the lake as its a protected area , I understood that only
the area around the dam is a protected area and with the help of local folks I rode down to
the lake , we spent some time on the banks of this stunning lake , it’s called
emerald because its covered by greenery all around and because of which the
lake looks green in color which gave it the name emerald.
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| Need a caption? |
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| Far There is the emerald lake |
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| From another angle |
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| The gorgeous grassland and the lake |
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| The Landscape just opened up to bless us |
After spending sometime at the lake we rode
back to reach the avalanche check post and for the 3-4th time I was denied the
entry as there were too many people to accommodate, disappointed rode back to Ooty
, purchased the famous Ooty homemade chocolates for the family and rode back to
homestay , tea , chatting and hot water bath and relax , day well spent.
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| View from the homestay |
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| The evening just got beautiful |
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| Nice place to hangout |
We had packed the previous night and we started
our ride back at 6.30 in the morning. It was cold and I felt cramps in the
fingers , the fog filled Kalhatti ghat was simply beyond explanation , Aashu
was all exited , we stopped for breakfast after crossing the Bandipur forest ,
as told earlier , I took deviation at Gundlupet towards Chamarajnagar to avoid
Nanjangud road. A couple of stops one for tender coconut and for some fruits
and reached home by 1.30
pm.
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| My two love |
The
queen of hills was as welcoming as always, Aashu thoroughly enjoyed the ride,
hope you enjoyed the blog and photographs , until next time I ride to Yelagiri
for RTMC 14A , take care and god bless
