le Tour Coorg – The Bike trip – Story (Day 4) Dec 24, 2007.

le Tour Coorg – The Bike trip – Story (Day 4) Dec 24, 2007.

Last day of the tour and we were pretty much exited about the Home-coming. The terrain was supposed to be a flat one most of the places.

Gonikoppa is a town which wakes up pretty early, By 6 AM, there was more than expected crowd and business on the street. I was not able to sleep properly the previous night. Mostly due to the loud noise of the vehicles honking in the night, the room was too warm for comfort.

As usual, we had a cuppa tea in the morning and started pedaling. The sky was beautiful, an orange-red combination of clouds were at horizon welcoming the Sun. The scene demanded a stop and umpteen clicks.

The path till Titimati is surrounded by coffee estates mostly. The road was wider and the quality was pretty good. There are number of homestays on this route, I guess one can opt for this place instead of a busy Madkeri. Titimati was around 18 Kms from Gonikoppa, and we decided to stop here for Breakfast as there would no other big town until Hunsur.

A small hotel, not so good idly and dosa was the first food for us on the day. Couple of kms from there and we entered “Rajiv Gandhi National Park”. I guess there were some better places to eat here.

Pic : Orange Red Sky at Gonikoppa. Foreground - Manohar with is Helmet.

The road inside the National park was mostly deserted, an occasional Lorry or a tempo. We hardly saw any busses plying on that day. Yes, there were some Bangalore registration Cars zipping past us.

The next civilized place was “Anechaukur”, this place had numerous tamed elephants (Atleast 50-60), nice sight to watch. After some distance from here, we passed a forest entry gate, which marks the Coorg-Mysore boundry. We bid goodbye to Coorg and couple of police officers on the gate and proceeded towards Hunsur.

The road inside the National park is very silent and very good. At some places, it’s a bit spooky too J. I was pretty sure that we would not be sighting any wild-animals. The birds were abundant here. M is fond of birds and he was pointing me some good looking birds and their interesting postures. Not only Animals, me and M were not able to sight P also. He was flying as ever.

Pic : A Swamp inside the National Park.

Ok, what about my knee? My knee was fine by this time, but….. on this morning, I got a catch near my shoulder. I am sure that somebody was cursing me all the time ;). Due to this, a much awaited good long flat stretch on my road-bike was not that comfortable.

Just when one gets out of the National Park, the trees surrounding the road become sparse. By this time, left pedal of my bike was squeaking like anything, M would judge how far I am just by hearing at the irate noise.

We stopped at a hotel and had a cup of tea, oiled the pedal which was making all the noise and proceeded. An hour of cycling and we were invited to an awesome picturesque sight of Mysore-Plains. One can see all the shades of green. For the first time in three days, “Mountain” was missing between us and the Horizon.

Pic: Nice place to rest

4 Kms before Hunsur, we hit Madkeri-Mysore Highway. Newly laid road, broader than we expected. It was 12 Noon by this time, me and M stopped for a tender-coconut sip. We reached Hunsur around 1 PM, thanks to some local advice, we had lunch at a nice Hotel.

Mysore from Hunsur is 48 Kms, the thought of pedaling in the hot sun was scary. To make the matters worse, there was heavy headwind and also no trees around the higway. P found a nice abandoned Bus-stop (10 Kms from Hunsur) and stopped there. Me and M followed him and had a nice nap for 45 minutes. With 37 more to go and in difficult conditions, there were lot of discussions about plan changes. Finally we thought of pedaling upto Yelavala (15 Kms before Mysore) and then hitch a ride to Srirangapatna for a dip in Kaveri river.

Pic: Prashant all set to move.

Another 15 Kms of pedaling, we were at a place called Bellikere. It was a welcome break for me, drank a sprite and devoured some grapes too. A km or so, we encountered a “Road Under Construction”. A ride on a bad patch of the road and I felt my bike is not going further, I looked at the back wheel and there, I had picked up a puncture.

Quickly, we loaded the bike and myself onto a Rickshaw towards Yelawala (6 Kms from here). Yelawala is a busy town concentrated on a Fork. One side of the fork goes to Mysore (15 Kms) and the other towards Srirangapatna (26 Kms). I thought this should be the end of the bike trip for me and felt bad for the way it ended. By the time the mechanic could fix my bike, M and P arrived. We celebrated with Ice-candy and Juice for successful completion of the trip.

We stood at the left-side of the fork in hope of getting a luggage van to give us a lift to Srirangapatna. 45 minutes of wait in vain and we decided (Wisely) to proceed further towards Mysore on our bikes and catch a bus to bangalore.

It took us 1 hour 15 minutes of ride plus a stop at Hinkal to meet my cousin-brother and a quick snack to reach Mysore bus-stand. Got into a Volvo bus with our bikes safely packed inside the luggage space. Reached Bangalore at 10.40 PM, felt nice riding on the empty roads. Reached home at 11.30.