Christmas Ride - Waynad and Kannur

Hei how was the ride son?

Sooper dad!:)

How was the weather out there!

Oh! From a cold Bangalore to moderate Waynad to humid Kannur now back to cold Bangalore , hope the body copes:)

How many kilometers u rode!?

Around 1000 dad , 1004 to be precise

Oops u need some rest , do take rest.

Summary of a 4 day ride in a discussion of 4 minutes with dad , and that’s how exactly it was , I started from my home at early morning 6 and it was cold , we decided to take Kanakapura-Chamarajanagar-Sultan Bathery route and I took the nice road from Peenya to enter into the Kanakapura road , roads are well done everywhere and traffic was moderate. Once I crossed Sri Ravishankar ashram I could sense the real village atmosphere , people who often ply on Kanakapura road might have noticed the huge lake near Harohalli , fog had settled down on the lake and the road which cuts the lake was barely visible which made for some great visuals.

With my life and ride partner _ Its a selfie Time

The only problem travelling on Kanakapura road is the lack of hotel facilities ( Kamath , Adigas , A2B are you listening ) with loads of tourist attractions like Mutatthi , Bheeemeshwari , Shivanasamudra there are no hotels available barring the Mayura in Shivanasamdura which is 3kms off NH 209 , with no hotels we had to go to Mayura and I rate 2 out of 5 for the hotel for lack of options and no great taste. After breakfast it was an uneventful ride other than catching up with 2 grazing elephants in Bandipur on the way to Sultan Bathery. I had booked my accommodation at Chingly Residency using Yatra.com , though the room and service was great it is too far from the usual tourist visits of Waynad like Edakkal caves , Soochipara , Kanthapara and Meenmutty waterfall and Chembra peak , booking accommodation at Kalpetta would have been a better option. We checked into our room at around 12.30pm , took bath , rested for a while and went out for lunch and visited Edakkal caves. We reached Edakkal and a 2 km trek takes you inside the cave , the walk is tiring and I did not find the place interesting , may be someone who is interested in history may like it. We stayed there for a while and after we trekked down , we asked a local for any other interesting place and he suggested us to visit Neelimalai . A 12km ride from Edakkal took us to the foothill of Neelaimalai . From the foothill a 4*4 drive takes you to the top of the cliff and they charge INR 500 for the ride. The ride was really interesting , how easily the Mahindra M540 maneuvered the broken pathway was fantastic , we reached the top of the cliff and from there we can see Meenmutty waterfalls, the view of waterfall from there is beautiful. Neelimalai is a thick forest area and from the top of the cliff we can see houses of tribes settled in the forest. We came back from Neelimali to our room and that was end of day 1.

View of Meenmutty Falls from Neeleimalai

Day 2 started with breakfast at the Udupi hotel in Sutan Bhatery. After breakfast we headed to Chembra peak , A 39kms ride from Sultan Bhatery takes you to Chembra peak check post , from there we need to take ticket to reach the viewpoint , and if you want to see the lake on top of the hill , we need to buy a INR 750 ticket (valid for 10ppl ) and trek 2.5kms which approx. takes 90-100mins to reach the lake. We decided not to trek and we just went till the view point spent some time clicking pictures.

Stunning View on the way to Chembra Peak

Not all who wonder are lost!

The you go , hope someday a home right there

When you feel its the end its just a bend

From there we went to Soochipara waterfall which is a 8km ride from Chembra , we reached Soochipara around 1pm had our lunch and went to the waterfall , a  1.5km walk from the ticket point takes you to the beautiful waterfall , the waterfall and the path leading to the waterfall is very well maintained. For every plastic water bottle you carry an entry is made of it and if you don’t show the same during your exit a fine if INR 50 is collected , thought a sane way to stop the mess the plastic bottles create. After reaching the waterfall clicked a few photographs.

The beautiful but crowded Soochipara Falls

From Soochipara waterfall a 4km ride takes you to the beautiful Kanthapata waterfall , the ride to the waterfall itself is exciting with almost some 60 degree inclined roads. The waterfall was small , beautiful , less crowded and clean . After spending sometime at the waterfall we headed towards our room , saddled up for next day’s ride to Kannur.

The Beautiful Kanthapara Falls

The Beautiful Kanthapara Falls

Day 3 started early at 6am , the weather was cold and once I crossed Kalpetta the beautiful scenic roads opened up , we reached the sunrise point on the way just in time at 6.40am to see the sunrise at 6.45am what a spectacular view it was . 

Sun Rise @ Sunrise View Point

We reached the Lakkidi view point , we got down the ghat , and from there Calicut is 45kms , we took a deviation at Adivaram to join the NH 17 at Koliyandy to reach Kannur , after riding in NH's like NH 4 and NH 7 the NH 17 is outdated and risky ,the truck traffic is heavy and the roads are narrow and also the humidity was getting on to us . Finally we reached Kannur , hungry and tired . Karthik and Swetha who had come a day earlier came to our room and after a quick bath we had our lunch and we took a short nap. We went to the Payamballam beach which is approx. 2kms from our room , had great time at the beach , the sunset was spectacular which made possible a exiting photography session , and after a quick dinner we saddled up for our next days ride back to Bangalore.

Lost In Thoughts

Army Guys Training at the neach

With the love of my life

As the sun sets with the promise of another beautiful day

Aashu in her usual self

Back from work

Day 4 the ride back was uneventful we started at 6.30am and reached Bangalore via Hunsur - Mysore , we bid our goodbye to Karthik and Swetha at the nice road junction and by 2pm I and Ashritha were home , a great ride and time well spent on the road.

Hope you liked the photographs and write-up , until I comeback with another travel story , be well. Happy New Year.

Route Map:

https://www.google.co.in/maps/dir/Bengaluru,+Karnataka+560001/Kanakapura,+Karnataka/Sultan+Bathery,+Kerala/Vythiri,+Kerala/Koyilandy,+Kerala/Kannur,+Kerala/Gonikoppal,+Karnataka/Bangalore,+Karnataka/@12.2003274,75.9235234,9z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m50!4m49!1m5!1m1!1s0x3bae166f94f04901:0x5e06e423109f8222!2m2!1d77.5992708!2d12.9765944!1m5!1m1!1s0x3bae58514a06ef17:0x2b7a698976431240!2m2!1d77.4198823!2d12.5462442!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba608bb285e4b7d:0xe29cb8dc789996ce!2m2!1d76.2626653!2d11.6656117!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba672874352ade7:0xca4f8007338f0b5f!2m2!1d76.0402621!2d11.5516594!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba68a189944e903:0xf160445b1b9d786e!2m2!1d75.6935323!2d11.4446468!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba422b9b2aca753:0x380605a11ce24f6c!2m2!1d75.3703662!2d11.8744775!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba5ba3eec753a5d:0x73364f90572e0b3e!2m2!1d75.9260011!2d12.1845867!1m5!1m1!1s0x3bae1670c9b44e6d:0xf8dfc3e8517e4fe0!2m2!1d77.5945627!2d12.9715987!3e0?hl=en