This was a completely unplanned trip. This was the day we were supposed to tamely drive back home after a successful offroading event at Coorg.
See the report of the offroading event here:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/4x4-of...08-report.html
During the morning coffee, I overhear a conversation between Giri Tirumale and Kiran Kumar where Giri is suggesting some scenic place near Virajpet that is a must see. He says once you reach Chelavara falls, people usually go on foot, but you just turn right and keep going, just keep going, some places you may have to use 4WD, but just keep going, after few Kms it is a great scenic spot. Soon Kiran, Shahnawaz (Khan_sultan)and myself are interested. Since it seems like a small detour I quickly convince my wife to modify our itinerary for the morning.
Meanwhile word spreads and few more including Jammy ‘s gang gets on board. But Jammy himself is not so keen since he has plans to take the Delhi guests Sarvinder and Romi to almost all his favourite spots like Nagarhole. Bandipur, Gopalswami betta all on the same day. As more people join, we start getting delayed and we eventually take off at around 10AM.
Couple of KMs later we have to stop since Romi/Sarvinder aren’t with us.
After some 10 minutes of wait, they both joined us on the Yellow MM440. So we continue again. At Ammathi, Kiran, Shahnawaz and myself turn towards Virajpet, but the MM440 which was behind me continues straight towards Polibetta. Again we all come to a stop. After another 10-15 minutes, the MM440 comes back and races ahead of us. Again we all start towards Virajpet. As we were closing on Virajpet, I notice Jammy’s red Willys parked on the side along with the yellow MM440. I continued ahead thinking they will catch up with us in Virajpet. But the wait at Virajpet was a long one, eventually we found that Jammy’s red Willys has starter trouble, the spark plugs are not firing. We reach towards the center part of the town and again park. As Jammy was trying to fix his Jeep few town folks started helping him out. After all this was Jeep country.
Meanwhile it was beyond 11AM and both the wives (Shahnawaz and mine) were giving an earful to their husbands about the delay and about cancelling the whole detour and head home. I finally told my wife that we will wait until 12PM before cancelling the detour. After some time Jammy told the rest of us to continue ahead to Chelavara without him, he would meanwhile get the Jeep properly repaired. With that understanding four vehicles took off, but only 3 made it to the first turn-off as one of them dropped out to return to Bangalore. So it was me (and wife), Shahnawaz (and wife), Kiran Kumar (and his friend Govind) in CJ340, Gypsy and MM540 respectively. All this time I am still thinking we are ahead to Chelavara falls. Kiran was in the lead and he was driving pretty fast, and I was focusing on keeping up with him. At one point Kiran stops the Jeep and get on the stop to shoot pics of the falls. I decide to wait until I get a much closer view.
A little later terrain gets difficult, I engage 4WD. Even Kiran gets down to lock his hubs. After some time we are doing some serious off-road climbing in a very rocky trail. Suddenly we notice that the engine is again reaching closer to 100C. Looks like any sustained climbing for 15-20 minutes leads to heat build up. So I stop the Jeep and leave the hood open for cooling the engine. There is a light drizzle. We call ahead to Kiran to make him stop and wait for us.
Click and view the large size images for better enjoyment.
About 10 minutes later we start off again. This time Kiran has stopped with his hood up. Apparently his coolant overflow tank was displaced and all coolant has leaked off. But radiator has coolant and there was nothing to worry about.
Meanwhile I was getting worried about the distance, I keep asking how much more, the water falls looked not so far. I am eventually told we are going to a mountain top. Right where we had stopped, there was a very old tomb of a person who died in 19th century, the guy just missed out on Roy Bahadur title. Nice little piece of history.
The path ahead looks mysterious and rocky.
So we continue, the trail gets even more rocky and challenging, but nothing beyond the normal ability of our rides. At this point I realise that my Grand Vitara couldn’t have handled this part. Finally we reach a point where the scene looked so nice we all had to get down.
We could see clouds lying on the mountain slope and my wife decided to literally walk into the cloud.
See where we have parked, the mountain is literally kissing the clouds.
This one will give the larger perspective; here only Kiran’s ride is visible. We are very close to clouds.
Suddenly everybody wants to be photographed with the clouds, my wife, Kiran and then Govind.
I get back to the Jeep and the scene looks divine.
Suddenly we hear an engine noise, we have company. Jammy’s Red and Yellow Jeeps show up with Jammy, Sarvinder, Romi, Sahana and Adhiraj. Jammy is in a hurry and he wants us to move on and he goes ahead. Now we are literally entering the cloud along with our Jeeps.
How often can you pose with cloud below you?
Here the roads are very deeply rutted, we are actually wary of them.
And Jammy gets stuck in one of the deep ruts.
The path is seriously damaged and Jammy tries to get out but can’t. He is still having trouble with the engine, not all cylinders are firing, so he is under powered. Both sides have deep storm drains and beyond which there are deep cliffs.
Sarvinder comes forward in the MM440 to pull the Willys out. The rescue effort is in full swing while we are all fully inside the cloud.
Finally the red Willys gets pulled out and Sarvinder moves ahead, right into the rut. Jammy showers a bucketful of curses in his native tongue and Sarvinder remains cheerfully cool since he can’t understand a single curse. You see, both Jeeps belong to Jammy.
Meanwhile cloud clear up and we can see where we are.
Now it is the turn of the red Jeep to rescue the yellow Jeep.
To be continued.