Huchchara Santhe: tamilnadu

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Jan 31, 2014

Kolli hills, weekend getaway

way back in January 2013...

While browsing through some of fellow travelers blogs, I stumbled upon the place called Kolli hills, a hill station nestled in the Eastern Ghats located in the Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu about 300kms from Bangalore.

(a hairpin bend view)

Itching to venture out somewhere and had to test the Xylo for its ride and comfort, raja agreed to come along with his wife and nag pitched in too and as always guru ditched us at the last moment choosing not to come. Another aspect that lured me to plan a trip here were the inviting 70 hairpin bends to negotiate, a driver's delight in store!

The NH7 was as good as it could get with constructions and repairs in patches till Krishnagiri and from there its a cruise and after visiting a couple of temples at the small town of Namakkal, we drove towards Kolli hills or Kolli malai as its known as.

Route: Bengaluru-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri-Salem-Namakkal-Senthamangalam-Karavalli-Kolli hills
(Namakkal can be completely avoided as there is a diversion before Namakkal towards Senthamangalam-Karavalli). Ask for directions from the locals as its a little tricky and most of the sign boards are in Tamil language.

Good time to visit Kolli hills would be during the months of November-December when there are rains due to the North East monsoon and the hills is resplendent in a cover of green all around.

(view from the viewpoint from the highest point in the botanical garden)

Kolli hills is not as famous as other hill stations in Tamil Nadu and is famous for its herbal plants that are found in the mountain range and hence known as Herbal mountain. But what I saw in and around Kolli hills made me think it more as an garbage mountain, read this post here. Also, the weather was cooler on the top and remains pleasant throughout they year drawing lot of local tourists mainly for a weekend party or a drive to this place.

(another view from Sekuparai viewpoint)

Negotiating the 70 hairpin bends was a real treat with some wonderful valley views in spite of the mid-day heat, we took umpteen number of breaks to savor the beauty. But you need to drive with caution as some hairpin bends are narrow and the trucks, minivans just appear out of nowhere in full speed and the road is bad in patches.

We stayed at 'Nallathambi Resorts', a decent place worth the money and supposedly the best of the lot, and incidentally we enjoyed the food served. Here again, note there are hardly any eateries out of your resort and the best option would be to have it from the place you stay.

(view from Sekuparai viewpoint)

Places worth a visit when staying at Kolli hills:-
> We visited the lake (where raja and wife went on a paddle boat ride),
> the viewpoint in the botanical garden / park (got excellent views from here),
> Sekuparai viewpoint (again for some wonderful sun setting vistas)
> Akash gangai falls (need to get down the steep steps and climbing up was a herculean task), and the

(roughly 100 steps to climb down, climbing up was very tiring and exhausting)

Akash Ganga falls

> Arappaleshwar temple (the famous temple) over the one and a half days we stayed.
> We missed the Masila falls due to lack of time.

(as the sun goes down...)

(out of sight into oblivion...)

(the moon comes out in full glow!)

Overall to say, Kolli hills has the potential to be an excellent weekend getaway location if managed and maintained properly, else it's another disaster waiting to happen!

May 19, 2013

Kolli hills - the sad part!

Kolli hills – the ugly or the ‘real’ part

On a recent visit to Kolli hills (also projected as the Herbal mountain) located in Namakkal district in central Tamil Nadu, I had high hopes of going to an hill station secluded away from the world, all pristine and beautiful. Kolli hills is not yet popular as its famous counterparts, the Yelagiri hills or Yercaud but of late is slowly becoming popular with the weekend crowd and the distance from Bangalore is just lower than 300kms, a potential tourist spot in the making. Reaching there is a driver’s delight as you need to counter 70 hairpin bends to reach the small village at the top of the cliff and nevertheless to say the highway is neatly laid out and is a cruise from Bangalore.

Mid-way, while we stopped to enjoy the views (it was dry and hot being summer), a look below the walls and the scene was petrifying. Beer bottles grew on trees and the ground was plastic’d completely. Further, the next couple of stops that we did and the scenes repeated…slowly I began to realize the place been infested with plastic bottles and beer bottles!

With uncertainties and sapping in the hot sun, we reached our place of stay ‘Nallathambi Resort’ that looked quite clean and well maintained or I thought so! On the outlook, everything looked fine until I looked over the compound wall in disarray, again a plastic trash city over there. I went around different directions peeping over the walls and it was the same sight everywhere. Sooner, I realized not only this resort, other resorts/hotels too bore the same sight!

Sigh! To make mockery of the situation, the bus stand had a board stating ‘No Plastics’.

With a troubled conscience hitting me hard, I set off to the ‘touristy’ places nearby and the overall situation looked grim, far worse than I thought. We walked up and down to the Akash Ganga falls (the 1200 odd steps fatigued us no end) and it was infested with hordes of people (as expected), some bathing, some relishing and some sunbathing and yes littering was common.

Arappaleshwar temple is a favored place for many visiting Kolli malai it was not anymore surprising for me to see a huge dump yard right in front of the temple. The visit to the small falls/stream opposite to the temple yielded more signs with the stream littered with clothes/plastic/bottles. What I expected was a quiet hill station offering solace to the weekend traveler and what I saw was a notorious ‘plastic station’ infested heavily with plastics and garbage. The signs of herbal mountain turning into a garbage mountain doesn’t seem too distant.

Nov 14, 2012

Uganiyam, Melagiri - KANS activity

With nothing to do on a weekend in September, I casually called up Deepa (http://deponti.livejournal.com/) who is the head and the organizer in the group for any activity or walks happening, she informed that we could go to Uganiyam for KANS activity and I readily agreed. I was not aware much about the place or the activity we would be doing until we met the other members of the Kenneth Anderson group on that day morning.

(forest track in the Uganiyam range...)

I had volunteered earlier with KANS for the mammal survey in the Hosur forest division a couple of years ago and have been a fan of Kenneth Anderson and monitoring the activities of the group closely. My cupboard hosts the Kenneth Anderson's books that gives you goosebumps while reading, riveting and involving I should say.

(patterns created by the caterpillars/moths)

The activity was about data collection from the preset camera traps at specified locations in the Uganiyam forests in the Melagiri range that’s along the Cauvery river near the temple of Dabaguli that is infamously famous for the annual “Dabaguli jathra” that happens. From the last few years, members of KANS (Kenneth Anderson Nature Society) camp near the Dabaguli temple area during the mela and ensure the forests are not raided and kept clean by collecting the litter, great job being done!

The reserve forest area we went to is about 130 odd km from Bangalore that is in the Tamil Nadu state and across the shore is the forests that belong to Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary in the Karnataka state. APC’s are located prominently opposite to each other so that patrolling can be done effectively and in co-ordination. The entire Melagiri range is an important elephant corridor and hosts a variety of wildlife (as seen from the camera traps) and also rich in all forms of life. Myself and Deepa went along with the regular KANS members Karthik, George, Prem and Ashish who are doing a tremendous job regularly.

(Luna moth, I had a hard time to figure out the head and the lower part)

The activity involved visiting the traps laid, downloading data from them and relocating them if required and we did this across 4 different locations in the Uganiyam range. Checks of the data collected revealed presence of wild boars, lots of spotted deers, sambar deers, langurs, elephants, leopard and “cattle”. Good amount of promising wildlife but the “cattle” infestation is a problem and yet no signs of the big cat (tiger) so far, but hope remains!

(beautiful colors...)

Deepa, as usual was behind all forms of life and now to see, she has made an amazing collection from the outing and I was also behind those lovely butterflies in their migration period as we could see hordes of them all around. The area was full of birdlife too that started on the way and the richness in the Uganiyam range was fantastic.

(Red-tailed skink)

Sighting of the herd of elephants led by a huge alpha female, otters in the Cauvery river, a juvenile white bellied sea-eagle and the butterfly congregation was the treat for the hard work put in for the day. It was also humbling to see the vast, rich evergreen forests divided by the river Cauvery that flows with grace all along without any human disturbance or talks about border issues; truly the forests and the rivers have no borders or boundaries. Karnataka state on one hand has been more proactive in declaring the area as a wildlife sanctuary while the Tamil Nadu part of the forests is still a reserve area; tremendous efforts are put in by the KANS team to preserve these rich, contiguous forest areas that supports amazing wildlife.

Thanks to George (for that wonderful ride in his jeep), Karthik (I had met him earlier too), Prem, Ashish and Deepa Mohan (for taking me along). Will be back soon!