Sunday ride to Hogenikal

Following write up by Srikeerthi:

It was not a very enthusiastic response that I got from friends when I asked them if they were interested for a days ride to Hogenekkal. Only four were in for the ride. But the surprise was when I saw only Praveen in the morning. Other two were out due to some reasons beyond my knowledge. Anyway we were just two people who were gonna ride to Hogenekkal. We started by around 6:45 in the morning through the relatively less crowded Bangalore's IT corridor.

Instead of taking the usual easy route through the highway we decided to take the interior route. This would be a shorter route with more scenic views but we had to be prepared for bad roads too. This route would reduce the distance to the falls to just 125kms from the 180kms through the highway.

Luckily for us most of this route had been freshly laid, so but for the uneven bumps in the road, most of the journey saw us going through decent roads. The route through the villages to me was any day better than the boring straight roads. In places we had good roads comparable to the Golden Quad roads with some nice curves thrown in as bonus . We stopped just about 10kms before Hogenekkal for a break at a nice place that gave us a neat view of the valleys and the river in the distance.

After some snacks and Red bull (yeah red bull gives u wiiiiings, demo in the photo gallery ) we headed to Hogenekkal falls. We reached there soon enough and went coracle hunting (actually they'll hunt u down). We met Rajkumar (not the cinema person ) who would take us around the falls for the next couple of hours. We went around the lush waterfalls (thanks to the monsoons) enjoying the countless falls all over the place. Thanks to my ipod and speakers we had a musical coracle ride much to the envy of other tourists . After a few rounding sessions (rounding = how locals refer to the spinning coracle ) we were back on the banks of the river.

Well it was still 1'O clock in the afternoon and we were in no mood to head back to Bangalore so soon. So after some hunting around the river we found a secluded spot where there were no tourists to disturb. Just spent an hour lazing around there and having some more snacks. We also spotted a wild boar nearby which ran away after Praveen scared it away .

After spending enough time there we came back to the roads. It was a lazy ride back and we stopped a couple of places on the way back. All in all a simple lazy Sunday ride to Hogenekkal falls. Some of you might be interested in the route taken to the place (there are >4 ways to get to Hogenekkal ) here are the route details.

Route:

Onward:
Bangalore (Silk board circle) -> Anekal -> Thali -> Denkanikottah -> Anchetty -> Hogenekkal
Distance: 125kms
Return:
Hogenekkal -> Anchetty -> Denkanikottah -> Hosur -> Bangalore
Distance: 125kms

The second route has better roads than the first one and you would not miss a lot of scenery either. To get the correct turn when going from Bangalore you need to enter Hosur and take a right turn just before entering the main city of Hosur. There is a big board indicating the turn to Rayakottah and go to Denkanikottah.

The photos are available at:

http://www.jeetenge.com/imagevue
Select "Bike Rides 2006" and "Trip Hogenekkal" from the menu on top.