On the top of the hill, there is a forest department guest house with just two cottages.
The view from the first cottage
The view from the second cottage
I had a chat with the caretaker. The cost to rent the cottage is just 400 bucks a night, while the tent at the resort will set you back 4000 bucks a night. That’s the cost of luxury. There is no food facility, but if ration is provided, the caretaker will cook for you. And yes, you can eat non-veg, get your own booze and party as you like. That you can’t do at the resort below. However, there are no water sports here, and you need to go the beach near the temple to frolic in the water. The cottage can be booked only at Kundapur DCF’s office.
After that we came back to the resort and the snacks were ready. We were greeted by 3 dogs at the dining hall, two Labradors and one giant Harlequin Great Dane. Friendliest group of dogs I have ever seen. They gotta be… how else they can run around loose in a resort where new people come every day.
If you are not sure why I said giant Harlequin Great Dane, check this snap where I stood next to it.
I am standing with my hands up since the dog showed some interest in licking my hands, and I wasn’t into it. I mean, it is the biggest dog I have seen that closely.
After snacks, it was play time. My wife and kids walk away towards the beach and I had other plans.
Yup, my first ATV ride. During the snacks, I was asked whether I want to ride the 250cc geared ATV or 150cc auto-transmission ATV. What will a Team-BHPian say?
No, I didn’t say the obvious. After all, I am a careful man. This is a completely new kind of vehicle for me, so I figured it is better to start with a weaker auto-tranny until I get used to it. So I chose the 150cc automatic ATV. Turned out to be good decision, on both counts.
Initially I thought I could drive this thing in the beach. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Since quite a few people drove the ATV into the water, they don’t allow beach drives any more. Washing a salt-water soaked ATV is no joke. I could only drive it in resort walkways and in wild garden. Basically, offroading in dry mud and uneven grounds.
As I wore the ill-fitting helmet and learnt how to control the beast, I found out it has a mighty kick. It had lots of torque, just a small twist of the handle and it just takes off. Wonder how the 250cc would feel like. At first I took it slowly, learning to control that sudden release of torque. As I was about to turn, I tried to turn and it didn’t. The bike method of tilting and turning simply didn’t work since it doesn’t tilt. A slight twist of the handle doesn’t work either. One has to literally turn the handle like it is a car. I mean, these things should be equipped with steering wheel, not a handle like a bike. And when you turn, there is no countering of centrifugal force, so you feel pushed out of the vehicle. After some practice I found that if I stand and tilt my body to counter the centrifugal force, it works out fine.
After 15 minutes of offroading in the uneven grounds, I decided to stop. After offroading in Jeep, this ATV offroading didn’t feel any special. The ride was way too hard and handling was terrible, Jeep wins on both counts. Now I understood why too many people drove into water, it is not easy to turn at the last moment unless you have good practice, and most guests who ride are first-timers.
Anyway, I took couple of shots after the ride.
Since I couldn’t drive the ATV in the beach, I suddenly started having craving for beach driving. After reading Tanveer’s desert travelogue, I figured I had a better understanding of dealing with sand, it was time to put that knowledge to test. At first I just walked into the beach and took a look around.
On the left side, I just saw my family having fun in the waves.
On the right side, well, nobody.
What you see in the above photo immediately in front is the entrance to the beach. Notice the texture of the beach sand until it hits the high waterline. This part is extremely soft and every step sinks into the sand. If I take the Grand Vitara into the beach, this is going to be the most challenging part. Getting down to the beach may not be a problem since it is downhill. But getting out could be a problem. Then I remembered that these guys have a tractor just for the purpose of pulling the water crafts out of the water. So, recovery vehicle is not a problem. With that thought I decided to take the GV into the beach, for the very first time.
I started off at 4H-lock before I got into the sand and drove over the quick-sand section fast in 2nd gear. I could feel the sand give way, but I was too fast to get bogged down. After that part, I stopped on firm wet sand and switched to 4L-lock and started ripping across the beach in 3rd gear. Wow, what fun!
I took a K-turn and then flew the other way. This time I executed a fast U-turn drifting happily in the sand. There was no body-roll at all during the U-turn although I was expecting it. Did the drifting neutralize it, I am not sure about the mechanics of it. Now I came back to the start position and came to a grinding halt in firm wet sand. When I say firm wet sand, I mean the part which was under water during high tide in the morning.
By now many resort employees were by the beach watching the fun, apparently this is not a common sight for them. They were quite impressed with the drifting U-turn, well, so was I.
Ok, now it is photo-op time. Unfortunately, I had recently turned off noise-filtering on my E3 for some reason and forgot to turn it back on. Because of that, many of the lowlight images have too much noise.
You can see the effect of grinding halt on the sand.
The left side
The right side
The sun is about to set…
The young one is having too much fun on his first day ever on the beach. In his last visit here, he was only 2 months old.
Later as we washed the sand off him in the sea water, he couldn’t stop giggling.
It feels like a private beach, isn’t it? In Karnataka, there is no concept of private beach, they are all public beaches here.
Now I wanted to take my family on the beach drive and there is a problem. Both the kids are soaking wet, putting them in the GV means spoiling the seats. And my wife can’t join me leaving the young one. So they walk away to the tent leaving me with one more round of beach drive and the ultimate problem of getting off the beach.
Meanwhile, I want to take video of the beach drive, but I can’t do it by myself. No, driving on the beach executing fast U-turns and shooting video in one hand is out of question. My wife could have it shot it, but she had already left with the kids to the tent. Anyway, bad luck.
So I took off again in 4L, driving in 3rd and 4th. This time I drove both directions and did fast U-turns on both side. After the second U-turn, as I approached the entrance, now I faced uphill drive on quick-sand kind of sand terrain. I switched to 3rd in low and with a wide turn and gunned for the entrance. As I entered the danger area, I could feel the sand literally parting under me and I realised I couldn’t accelerate anymore, in fact I could generate instant wheel spin if I push the A-pedal any more. So I just maintained the same speed and hoped that the momentum was enough to carry me all the way. In few seconds it was all over and I was on firm rocky road, and I came to a stop and disengaged the diff lock.
Before I got down, I just wondered. The bunch of resort employee standing at the entrance, did they have any idea about how close I had come to getting stuck. It must have looked very ordinary since it came off so uneventfully. With that thought, I got down and walked towards them.
But wait, they all look positively ecstatic, beaming with happiness and downright thrilled. One guy couldn’t hold it anymore and burst out.
He: Sir, you are the first one to ever drive in this beach and get out on your own.
Me: You mean nobody has ever driven in this beach?
He: No sir, this first part is so tricky, everybody gets stuck here. We have had so much trouble pulling our own boat dollys even while using the tractor.
Me: Well, it is the right combo of torque and momentum. Also, in sand the floatation is more important than the grooves on the tyre.
He: I see what you mean, now all our dollys have completely bald balloon like tyres, now it is much easier.
After some more sand off-road talk, I walked away with a happy smirk. Damn, these guys actually understood the problems of beach off-roading. As I drove towards the tent, I found my wife and kid standing outside waiting for me. The tent keys were in the GV.
After giving a quick bath to the little one, as I was dressing him up, I recalled I had not taken any snaps of the tire tracks on the beach. I mean they really tell the tale of how GV floated over the sand. By this time it was quite dark, not much chance of a clear picture. Still, I had to try, so I tried, and got something acceptable.
In the first image you can see the left turning tracks, that is how I entered the beach. The right turning tracks are exit tracks from the beach. In both cases, you would notice that the tracks get deep once I enter the firm wet sand, but it practically glides over the dangerous quick-sand zone.
This is a close up shot using flash. Notice how the tracks are not any deeper than the foot steps, the GV just floated over the sand.
Had I slowed or stopped at this part, it would have been
Hello Tractor. I don’t think GV has the torque the pull out of that one. At least I didn’t want to find out the hard way, not on a family trip.
After this we packed up, paid the bill, it came to 750 bucks for everything including the ATV ride, and we drove home. The best fun was driving GV on the beach and that was priceless.
The parting shot, Rudra added his touch my GV beach shot.