Anthargange - Bike Trip

On a weekend expecting guys to wakeup early and be ready for a trip was difficult. That’s what I thought until last Saturday. Our plan was to start around 6:30 in the morning since one of the team member stays in the other end of the city. The team managed to assemble at the agreed meeting point in Indiranagar at 7:00 AM.

From there the onward journey started towards Kolar via Old Madras Road. This was the first long ride experience to the fellow biker. I was assuming the road was of four lanes until I hit the highway. Oops! Even though the road was very good, there were few drivers on the road who made me think how did they managed to get licenses (even by paying bribe :) )

We stopped before Kolar on the bypass for our breakfast. Got off from the Highway, entered Kolar. Turned left before the bus stand and a 3 kilometer ride further we were at the foot of Anthargange hills.

We straight jumped into the woods, while our teammate was suggesting taking the steps. Our response was, "What is the thrill in climbing the steps?" On seeing our interest in making our own way he joined us in the woods.

After some small rock climbs (All of us are first time climbers except for one guys who had done some basic course in rock climbing) to the left of the steps, we climbed down to find out a cave near the steps itself.

While two of us started to jump into the cave and crawled to the other side, we were hearing the voice of the team member who preferred to stay out "Hey where are you? I am not able to see you. Muje Dar Laghta hai". After few photo shoots and exploration inside the cave, we started making our own way to climb towards the top.

On the way we found a bunch of butterflies on this tree. What a view to see so many butterflies in one place.

After making our way through thorny bushes and climbing and jumping on the rocks, we reached a nice view point under the shadow of the rocks. After a rest for an half an hour and enjoying the scenic viewpoint we started moving further in the rocks. Now the climbs were little steeper and getting harder. After a certain point two of us almost gave up. One guy starting telling I will wait here itself you guys go and come. On the way down pick me up.

By this time the other guy had climbed far ahead of us. We tried shouting loud but could not get any reply from him and he was not to be seen in the picture at all. After some time he appeared on top of a rock far far away from us. Don’t know where he derives the energy from :)

We managed to climb some more where we saw a huge rock pile arranged in an order that would fall apart with human effort. We entered in the wedges just to find a nice resting place with a climate & comfort that was defying all the aircons. It had a deep cave inside with the width narrowing so much as if it appeared like an irregular cone from the top. Since we didn’t carry any ropes, we were not able to climb down and explore it.

Had the snacks that we carried with us. We were enjoying the climate and the view of the nature for almost an hour. We started our climb down. We found there was a natural stream water way, which made our climb down much more easier.

We came down to the temple by that way. The temple has a stream between the Nandis which tasted so sweet. All the processed and ozonized water were no match for the taste of it. There were kids who were carrying water cans near equal to their weight down the hill to Kolar.

Finally we got down the hill and thankfully our bikes were not frisked :). The monkeys have played their part by tearing the seat covers and tank covers of our bikes. Had our lunch around 4:30 PM! (Can we call it lunch at this time?)

While driving back it started raining heavily and we started enjoying the rain prick. With in minutes it became a near blind ride with heavy droplets of rain on us and we had no hiding on the highway.

We drove as safely and slowly as we could and entered Hoskote. Not even a single drop of rain here. The shoes had accumulated so much of water I was not able to change gears or apply brakes properly. So we stopped near a hotel for a chai.

We were so wet that people started seeing with amusement where these creatures came from :)

We plan to have a camp next time and also we plan to scale to the peak of the hill in our next visit.