I finalized most of the routes before ride however some of the routes which i am planning were not in google maps. Those routes i decided to check with localites once we go there.Initially 10 of my friends confirmed for this ride, as usual there were some drop outs in the last minute and final counts stands as 7 for this ride.
I finalized most of the routes before ride however some of the routes which i am planning were not in google maps. Those routes i decided to check with localites once we go there.Initially 10 of my friends confirmed for this ride, as usual there were some drop outs in the last minute and final counts stands as 7 for this ride.
Till Chitradurga it was 6 lane road, after Chitradurga we took left towards Shimoga which was single road. Even then it is single road, road was were wide & good and we maintained good speed. As sun is rising, we started dehydrating. We took couple of breaks for water and petrol before we reach Shimoga. We passed through Shimoga town and headed towards Sagar. As most of the sign boards are only in Kannada, one of our Kannadiga rider started leading from there, more to it he also knows the route to Sirsi. After Sagar we took a little stretched break, as we are on schedule. We took right turn after Sagar towards Sirsi, mean time we checked with our resort guy for lunch. He suggested to take food at their restaurant at Sirsi and we went straight to restaurant. After lunch we went to the resort which is 7KM away from the town, deep inside the forest.
Day 2: We woke up relaxly and had coffee in the morning. Resort guys has mentioned about a stream behind the resort and thought of explore it. We went on a morning walk to the stream, as it was summer not much of water there. However the location is fresh and filled with forest aroma around there. We took some photos there and came back to room. Meanwhile i was checking with resort guys about the places and routes. They confirmed me that there is a off-road which connect Shivaganga to Magod falls directly. Initially i planned to visit Sahasralinga, which is famous for thousand lingas are carved on rocks in the river and on its banks. However with new plan we decided to skip Sahasralinga and do some off-roading near Shivaganga.
Around 4:30pm we started to Sathodi falls, which was the last falls in our list and hoped for some water. Resort guys told that water was there in the falls. It was around 12km from the resort. Road was patchy and after some distance it was terribly bad, it took almost an hour to cover this stretch. When we are close to falls we were riding along the bank of Kali River (Kodasalli Reservoir), it was so big and cool treat for our eyes in the summer. We reached the entrance by 5:30Pm and gate keeper told that they will close the gate by 6:00pm. We need to walk for a km to reach falls and they have made cement path way. However in the end we need to climb some rocks to reach the bottom of the falls.
Resort cook is vegetarian, hence resort guy made some arrangement from outside for Non-vegetarian food for dinner. We got some chicken and omelet and had our dinner with veg food. We spent good time around campfire and talking about our rides. Went to bed early as we have a long ride on next day.
Day 3: Morning woke up early as we have to start early, it was misty outside. We roamed around the resort and did bird watching around there, spotted few Hornbills. We had local food for breakfast. Here come most exciting part of the ride, i have checked about a hanging bridge near our resort which connects to Dandeli called as Shivapura Hanging Bridge. However there is no routes shown in Google map, and our resort guy confirmed that bikes can go on that route. And informed us that around 13 km (7km before and 6km after the bridge) will be complete off-road. We started from the resort by 9:00am to Hanging Bridge.
We spent some time around there and took photos. We started from there to Ulavi Village where the proper road will be there. This stretch was loose soil mud road and steep. We were riding very slowly as we couldn't balance our bike on the soil. Most of our riders alteast once they fallen down after loosing their balance. It took almost 2hours to cover this 6km. Finally around 12:00PM we reached Ulavi.
We covered around 1300km durng this ride. It was one of best ride which i did so far, in terms of routes, different terrains, no break downs and also we were on schedule most of the time. Thanks to the riders for making this memorable ride.