Horsley Hills,Talakona and a NIKON D60

[romyeo4u]

Looking at the long weekend of July 4(US Independence day),5,6 we guys decided why not go to Horsley Hills again plus Talakona waterfalls, booked cottages,took the route maps and here we go.

Gear: Nikon D60, Canon,Olympus

Cars: Santro Xing,Maruti800
Gang:2 kids and 8 Colleagues
------------------------
Useful info:

Talakona: stay at a AP tourism guest house close to 15 rooms 6 doublebed 450/- perday , ok type- No hotels or restaurants, give order to the local small shops they will get you the food
Horsley Hills : we booked windfalls which are 2 double bed rooms in one cottage 2500/- per cottage, food is ok , check out the menu, the reason I had to take the foto was they didn't had a menu which we could take it to our cottage, only dinner is room service, for lunch one has to go to the restaurant.


Hyd - Talakona= 550 KM
Hyd-Nandyal-Bhakarapeta=523 Km
Bhakarapeta-Talakona=31Km


Talakona-Madanapalle= 80Km
Madanapalle-Horsley Hills= 40km

Madanapalle - Hyderabad


The fun --> to be continued...

[mjothi]

Nice useful information. Keep them coming more.
Waiting for the pictures of the first 2 main items in the title

[muralisk]

Great. Nice information and keep it coming ...

[normally_crazy]

I loved the menu card - "Please allow 20 minutes for HOT SERVICE"

Where are the other pictures and the rest of the reports ?

[PatienceWins]

Very useful information. I like the menu card.

Looking forward to see the fun.

[snaronikar]

Nice bit of information for travellers. BTW, how good is mapxl.com? Do post the "fun" part of this...

[romyeo4u]

Thank you all for the comments and reading, lets get into the detail

This is the second trip to Horsley Hills, we expected lot of fog , our expectations were never met however we had a great time.

We started @ 8PM My santro from Hitech city- meeting point was Mehdipatnam Food world,by the time I reached it was 9:30 PM and the other car Maruti 800 those guys were suppose to come from Sec-bad and I couldn't stop laughing because of the time it would take for those guys to reach the meeting point, they came by 10:20 after the smoke and checking all the necessary stuff (Booze,Smoke,snacks), we kickstarted by kissing my car, traffic was terrible till Shamshabad the new international airport.

stopped at the outskirts and checked the air pressure,back on roads ,the excitement and enthusiam was shortlived after looking at the conditions of the road, if we have better word than WORST than that would do the justification, and Icing on the cake all the volvos heading towards Bangalore, so volvos and our cars on the same path.

The deal was that Santro would trail the Maruti, so that we can be in sync, after sometime I had to overtake and lead it because my fellow friend in 800 wasn't sure of the roads, after going over speed breakers @ 60 , braking hard from 80 to 30, all because of blind divertions and speedbreakers you wouldn't even realise unless the front tyres are over it, later decreased it to 50 go on a safer side, was too scared to push beyond the 60, reached Jadcherla at 1:30AM halt for dinner, after spending 45 Min, time was not a constraint for us , so Nawaab style.

Our saga of bad patches, speed breakers,divertions continued till Kurnool, giving us a breather here and there, we didn't enter Kurnool we took a deviation towards Nandyal, we were to go to Talakona first and Horsley hills later, after the deviation the roads look better even though its state highway, they were as smooth as a bed and literally no traffic, we stopped at deviation for round of smoke and chai.
and couple of the pictures

Photo session @ Kurnool Junction

Crazy guys @ 4:00am having a photo session

Our Gang name, and the same sticker is on 5 cars (M800,Santro,Lancer,Esteem,M800,)


Kid sleeping nicely

Lord Hanuman statue at the divertion which we took to go to Nandyal


Some funny poses





Busy looking at the route map


Btw the total count of the pics taken after removing the ones which are shaky is 1600,

"Oh god thank you so much for giving us the DSLR technology and Digital photography, may the film cameras and reels rest in peace.Amen "

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep

Stay tuned for the Talakona pictures and the road conditions

[romyeo4u]

Originally Posted by snaronikar

Nice bit of information for travellers. BTW, how good is mapxl.com? Do post the "fun" part of this...

Its pretty good and accurate, however it will literally give you the shortest path meaning through the state roads skipping, but the list of destinations is exhaustive. use in conjunction with either mapmyindia or roadsofindia that should take care of it , if anything goes wrong our very own Mr HVKUMAR is there to help us out the lost roads.

[romyeo4u]

ur photo stint at Kurnool junction, we guys decided no stopping till the dawn , the drive became very good and I love the roads , though its a state highway and 2 lane, there was no traffic at all, I was cruising around at 100 most of the time, after Nandyal, don't know the place name but it goes through very good blind curves and forest area,it was worth driving on those roads.

We halt for the break fast and couple of shots .


Shooting Star

Open Roads


Sky is the limit


Plane captured by NIKON

Sky Divided by a thin white line

Aspiring Cristiano Ronaldo

Garam Chai



Clouds


After the breakfast,chai and foto shoot, we are back on the roads, as usual roads were very good with literally no traffic, we reached Rayachoti, before reaching Rayachoti one has to through the ghat section,it was amazing and the views were very scenic.

After Rayachoti we reached Pileru and next was Bhakarapeta, there are 2 roads to go to Talakona from Bhakarapeta one through the village which is 15Km less and the other through the state highway 15Km more, we were greedy to save the fuel and eagerly eager to reach Talakona, so we opted for the shortcut,and it turned out to be a Off roading drill for the cars, we asked the locals how are road conditions they said its very good , and asked again can these cars go, they said ohh YEAH!, there were potholes,single lane track,no road, everything was there except a good road.

We saw few cinema vans coming in opposite direction and a NIIT bus from Hyd which was trailing us. here comes much anticipated TALAKONA.

Fotos of the Roads

On way to Rayachoti

Ghat section before entering Rayachoti

The shortcut roads
Single lane roads

[romyeo4u]

Finally we reached Talakona
in the reception the guy said to wait for 20 min, because the rooms are getting cleaned, and he was telling that just now cinema crew has vacated the whole resort/Guest house and it was of " Pawan Kalyan's upcoming flick" PULI meaning Tiger in Telugu.

We were graciously invited by the power cut, which the guy at reception said it will be there till evening and its quite common, Mobile networks doesn't work, unless you have BSNL since there is no restaurant, we gave the order at the reception in turn he gave it to someone who's got a small hotel.

We checked into our rooms and we were exhausted and it was 12PM ,so we decided to have food and few drinks, I was dead tired as I drove the Car all the way from Hyd to Talakona and we guys didn't had any sleep.

The plan was to go to the waterfalls at 4:30, I dozed off for an hour woke up and didn;t wanted go, felt like sleeping again,but all the way we came to have fun so got up got ready , its a 3 KM walk from the guest house to the waterfalls, its a small stream of water and it doesn't dry up, it is perennial.

as we step out, it started raining and it became a downpour the, one of my colleague his wife and 2 kids decided not to go because of the rain. for the rest SPIRITS were HIGH. the entry closes at 5:30 , there is a EICHER van which shuttles to and fro , it will drop 1 KM before the water falls, so one has to trek a 1KM anyways.

the guy said I can take you there but I cannot wait for you guys because its already there, so while returning you guys have to come on your own, that was good for us, due to the rain, I didn't dare to take out my NIKON D60, instead took Olympus Digi cam which one my colleagues has got.

We reached the dead point and we started to trek it was raining heavily still we went ahead and we were the only guys to go to the falls at that time, it was amazing,full of greenery ,forest around, worth watching.

we reached the waterfalls HURRRAY!!! at last, it was lovely we went near the falls played around for half hour then the photo shoot it was a great experience.

we started back and we reached the cottage and power cut has invited us again . luckily we carried a Torch, so it wasn't an issue for us.

we ordered for the dinner in the afternoon it self ,chicken, roti's,Egg curry,curd rice. it was OK, not sumptuos.

Then started the best part of the whole trip! DUMB CHARADES
we started playing dumb charades, it was one hell of a laughing riot, I never laughed that much in my entire life, reason being all of them had nice shots of booze and the choice of films given to enact were pretty funny.

Try to enact the below given movies:
Reshma ki jawani
Abyss
Night at the Museum
Stigmata
Steve Zizou and life aquatic
Exorcism of emily rose and the list goes on. it was one hell of a night and the fun has just began and the second part of the night is we guys were discussing about all the stuff and one guy who said all of a sudden that he can go to the waterfalls all alone, the time was 2am but there was a clause, he said he doesnt have any issues except that he is scared of snakes,we started pulling his leg, then we said ok , don't go till the fall , 2 km from the Guesthouse there is a small pool of water go till that point get soaked and come back so that we know that you went till that point, we headed out of our guest house and the only light being TORCHLIGHT, it was pitch black , the others got scared and we called off our great adventure .

Couple of Photos of the waterfalls and Talakona.

Ropeway

Forest Department's Log Hut



Guest house



Random Fotos

Holy Cow


The permanent residents

The waterfall

[romyeo4u]

Journey begins


On the way to Waterfalls



Temple near the guest house

So far is you thought only humans booze, this proves it as wrong


M800


Part 2 begins ( HORSLEY HILLS) to be continued