[NPV]

What happens when you read travelogues like this?
You go green with envy ? Heck, no ! You understand what you're missing out on and feel like since the place is just about 100Km from Bangalore and can be covered in an early morning drive !
I was inspired by Captain Fauji Sir's travelogue and decided to go over to watch sunrise at Devarayandurga as soon as possible.

A quick check with some friends and soon we're a 'gang of four' for this trip.
This will require hardly any planning apart from having cameras and binoculars ready.
We decide to optimize the number of vehicles so it's just one car and we'll coordinate the meeting points at various times. I doze off around 11pm after setting the alarm for 3.30am. As usual, the alarm is just a fallback plan and I wake up a few minutes before it goes off ! I quickly send out SMS/texts to my friends and get ready to head out after a hot shower.

Leaving home at 4am, I pick up my friend near Indiranagar and then head towards Mysore Road to meet the other two. By 5am, we're all in my Dizzy and head towards the Sumanahalli flyover/Outer Ring Road and hit Tumkur Road pretty soon. We take the elevated tollway, then after the next toll plaza we quickly stop to tank up Dizzy at a huge Bharat Petroleum fuel station.

About 6Km later we notice Kamat Upachar on the left (Dobbaspet) and 1 to 1.5Km later there is a flyover. Here, we take the service road on the left to go below the flyover (landmark here is a "Welcome to Sompura Industrial Estate" signage). We go past the first junction below the flyover and turn towards the right at the next junction. Here there are 2 roads - one is almost like a left turn and goes towards Devarayanadurga/Madhugiri (SH3) so we take this road (the other road goes towards Chikballapur/Devanahalli). All the way there are signboards and several small roadside tea shops so ask anyone here if you're confused.
Once on this road, about 15-17Km later (there was some truck traffic on this road and a few speed breakers, some odd sized so please drive carefully) we take a left turn and head up the hill. Soon, we're at the top by 6am;We park the car near the last flight of steps leading to the temple. The weather is just perfect and not too cold. By 6.15am, it's not dark anymore and after assessing the place outside we conclude it is safe to walk up the stairs. Climbing up, we get to a vantage point but soon we feel that the place below might be better to view sunrise.
Then we get down to watch the beautiful sight of sunrise, and the entire spectacle is over in less than 10 minutes - all good things are short and sweet and come in small packages.

We leave by 7.15am and stop at Kamat Upachar for a good breakfast and then head back to our homes - a morning well spent.

Here are some photos - I'm not a good photographer and I have a simple, point and shoot digital camera so please pardon picture quality and composition. These photographs simply do not do justice to what we witnessed with our eyes.

Dizzy


Well laid out stair



Carving in the rock near the temple entrance


View of the road from the top


View of fort and temple from the place we witnessed sunrise
Notice the place on top right - that will be a great place to view sunrise from but it's only accessible from the temple and it was closed at that time.


Sunrise in baby steps !






















Sun comes out with all it's glory




The moon bids adieu...

[Fauji]

Wow! Looks lovely!

You guys are lucky as Addyhemmige was not so lucky last week as it was very foggy. The sense of being alone amidst the serene surroundings early in the morning is an experience in itself. Thanks for sharing, Narayan.

[ampere]

Nice one NPV. Looks like the green cover is down.
(Thanks to the season).

But nevertheless, it is fun to head to DD hills.