Air in my hair

Bike Trip to Manchenbele dam!!

29th July 2010, It rained the whole day and there was nothing I did on this day. With no plans for Friday I went to sleep at 11 PM and that is when I thought of going on a Bike Trip. I got on to the internet and planned out the destination and places to visit on the way.

Home,Bangalore> Big Banyan tree> ISRO Moon Mission Control Room> Savanadurga and then back Home.

It was a 170 Km ride through the city and country side. On the trip day it conditions were overcast and cloudy throughout the ride with occasional showers. I knew there would be some rain (used the weather forecaster on my phone), so we took our jackets, sunglasses and extra clothing. It was just two of us on one bike. Me and Priya started our ride at 8 AM and the first 90 minutes we covered the most horrible part of the journey, the 23 KM within the city limits.

It was more than a perfect day for a ride and both of us have never been to these places. Once we were out of the city limits, we enjoyed the ride. Like I said in my previous bike trip, "Riding down the country side is pure pleasure". We reached our first Destination: The Big Banyan tree. This is one of the worlds biggest trees in terms of the area covered by the tree, a staggering 2 acres. This tree hosts a lot of birds and macaques. The Banyan tree's aerial roots were like pillars of a huge building. I had never thought that looking around a tree will take an hour!

At around 11AM we left from there, with the weather conditions looking like it was still 6 in the morning. After some biking, we came across the ISRO Moon Mission Control Room. We stopped by to see the mammoth satellite dishes and then continued on the curvy roads to Manchenbele.

With few of ups and downs we reached the Dam and it was probably one of the best days to visit the dam and the reservoir. With few birds flying by and clean air with a awesome panoramic view, the reservoir looked great. The fresh breeze kept the water moving and the dark clouds above made the water appear dark. We walked down to the banks of the reservoir and sat there for some while and enjoyed the weather.

We could see the Savanadurga Rock from the dam which is 14 Km from the dam and that is where we were heading next. After 90 minutes of wandering in Manchenbele, it was biking again. By the time we started from Manchenbele, it started the drizzle and we kept riding until it started to rain. We then took shelter under a huge tree for some while. When the rain stopped we shot off to Savanadurga. Savanadurga is one of the world's biggest monolithic rocks. We wanted to trek there and we could see this rock throughout the ride from Manchenbele, but we never got there. We were only going around it and never found a way to reach it. While riding, we were so engrossed with the landscape that we went past Savanadurga and we found that we were very far away from it. So, we traced back on the same route and we saw huge rocks and stopped there to trek. We reached the top of the rock and were chilling out and that was when the rain started pouring and we took shelter under few boulders. We had to wait there for more than an hour and realized that we could have not trekked Savanadurga Rock in the rain, as it is one huge smooth rock.

Savanadurga at the back ground

The highest point of our trek.

This is where we took shelter from rain

With an hour and a half for the sun to set, we headed back. On our way back we got lost, we had a great GPS signal but we were on the roads those were not on the map. I rode like crazy and did not bother about the route, as I started to like the adventure. There would come across some occasional sign boards and we just rode to enjoy the climate. One of the sign boards did not have "Bangalore" on it at all. This is when we came back and took a different route. On our way we crossed around 5 villages.

The cost for the trip was ` 200 for both plus the cost of food. There were no entry fees anywhere and all the money that we spent was for the fuel. We did not eat anything throughout, but had a very early dinner once we were back to Bangalore.