Location - Kuntibetta
Distance - Around 130 kms from Bangalore
State - Karnataka
Roads - NICE Road and Mysore Road - major portion was good
Rating of Road - 7/10
Date of travel - 04/01/2020
Terrain - Hills and plateau.
Cost - ₹1000
Solo/Group - Group - Bangalore Bong Bikers (BBB)
The new year for me began with a few new things. Apart from having a renewed vigour, I had an opportunity to go on my maiden trek. In the very first week of 2020, my group - Bangalore Bong Bikers (BBB), planned to visit Kuntibetta. Despite having born in Bangalore I wasn't aware of Kuntibetta nor had I even heard of it.
It was Friday afternoon when I made up my mind that I would go along with the group. The trip was scheduled to start at 2:30 am on 04/01/2020 and just 8 hours before the scheduled departure I had made up my mind.
The bike had to be washed, polished and lubed. I had to pack my stuff, carry some snacks and most importantly, I had to sleep for considerable time.
Somehow I managed to do all this and hit the bed at 11pm for some sleep. It was just that I had closed my eyes that my alarm had started to ring. Red eyes, tired body but high spirt was the condition in which I went to shower. A warm water shower at 2 in the morning and then I was physically fit to go on a ride.
Pulled my bag, put my stuff in, wore my watch, put on my jacket, mounted my action camera and was ready to go!
It was almost 3 am when I started from my home. The meet up before starting the journey was at Silk Board but I decided to get along with the group at Mysore Road.
As we were going to witness sunrise and had a considerable trek to do to reach the top, we decided to take no halts on our way. By about 5 am we reached the foot hill. It was pitch dark and absolutely silent. The place had no houses, no lights and no humans to be seen except members from our group. We were 10 of us but only 5 of us were carrying head torch. The rest were relying upon their mobile phone flash. I too relied on the flash of my phone, which was a mistake that I had committed. The other blunder that I had committed was that I wore sports shoes instead of trekking shoes. I realised it only when I started to climb the hill. I could manage to climb about 15 feet after which I tried to hold on to the hill, but instead slipped gradually due to lack of proper grip in my shoes.
Soon I realised that it was inevitable to take help of the other members and that I had underestimated the difficulty which I would face in this trek. Realising the importance of lights, I strategically positioned my self in between people who had lights, but the lack of trekking shoes was still felt.
After trekking for about 40-50 mins we reached the top at around 5:46 - 5:50 am. There were a few people around who had lit bonfire and were waiting for sunrise.
This place is at a considerable height and when you are here you can feel the silence and peace, provided you don't happen to sit near a noisy group. The place was peaceful, calm and a bit cold too.
Everyone present here enjoyed this sunrise in there own way. Some had trekked all the way to the top to do some yoga, some were busy exercising, some were jumping from one rock to another and many of them were clicking selfies. We stayed here for about 2 hours and decided to leave once it started to become hot.
The down hill trek was comparatively easier and it took us a few minutes lesser. Another reason was that we took an alternative route which was less steeper. Once we got down we had some tender coconut and headed back towards our bikes.
It is quite good to see that on a Saturday morning children were joyfully running towards their school. Such scenes reminded me of my school days and the innocent, responsibility free life I had there.
It was somewhere around 9:30 - 10:00 by the time we came down near our bikes. The sun was shining bright and we started to feel hot. With nothing left to eat and the growing hunger we decided to have some thing good for breakfast.
We decided to stop at Chennapatna for our breakfast. Chennapatna is known for toys and for food. We then took a halt at a resturant which was known for paaya soup.
Though the breakfast was a bit heavier than breakfast that I usually have but now that we were having our brunch after some exhausting trek seemed that we had made the right choice. We then headed back to Bangalore which was almost 50kms away. The group entered NICE road from Mysore road whereas I came via Kengeri to Jayanagar.
So that is how my first night trek came to an end after which I had an all new experience and a couple of new things that I had learnt in this trip!
That's it for now ... Will be back soon with a new trip soon.