Enroute:::
• Cable Bridge Old Madras Road - Bangalore >> drive ~17KM
• Enter Hosakote > Take left diversion at Chintamani Gate, Hosakote >> drive ~52 KMs
• Enter Chintamani > hit a shopping complex with state bank sign at dead end > take right towards Madanapalle >> drive ~36KMs
• Enter AP border >> drive ~15KMs
• Enter Madanapalle > hit dead end (Head Post Office) and take left > 3KMs > take left to exit >> drive 6KMs
• Take another left (I guess its Angallu Rd) >> drive 3KMs
• Rishi Valley School >> drive 6KMs
• Road sign “Welcome to Horsley Hills” > take left diversion here – this is Cuddapah road >> drive 1KM
• Road sign “Punnami Resort, Horsley Hills” > take left >> drive 8KMs (ghat section)
• Destination - Punnami Resort
Members: Kunal, Nimisha and I in our Fiat Palio D
It’s been a few days Nimisha was asking me to take a couple of days and go out somewhere (don’t ask me the reason; else I’ll have to plan another trip immediately).
I was looking at one of the posts by Abhi on Lepakshi trip that he did recently – I checked with him and he suggested that Horsley Hills can be a good place for what I’m looking for. Nothing special, this is what I was looking for
• Close to Nature, lonely but safe for family
• Not looking for much activities here - Just want to relax with family, books (if pos) and lil bit of beer - would not mind some activities involving small trek / nature walk or something
• Can be done over a weekend
I searched for another couple of blogs and gathered some more details about HH. Abhi’s post is really helpful and tells you how to get there and how you can spend some good time there.
We started at around 8 AM in the morning. I had to go till Koramangala to visit ATM before I can leave Bangalore. We bought some cold rinks and chips after we got down from the cable bridge. From the Cable Bridge on K.R. Puram till Hosakote there was slow moving traffic. We could maintain around 40-50 till Hosakote. You will hit a road sign immediately after the HP Petrol Pump on left for Chintamani, take left towards a gate (Hosakote entrance Gate may be!) from this road sign.
The road till Chintamani was okay; there was hardly any traffic on this road (it was Friday) compared to our way back to Bangalore on Saturday.
We again stopped at Chintamani to buy some chocolates and chips for Kunal – I got a chance to have a quick fag (it’s been a month now I stopped but I don’t force myself; I have it whenever I feel
)
We started again after 15 minutes break exit at Chintamani is a real bad road which goes thru a market.
We crossed AP border soon and then going thru all those small Rockies on both the sides of the roads.
Policeman stopped us at AP border check post; he opened the trunk and surprisingly he was looking inside the baggage! I told him even I can’t find things in this bag when its organized by my wife.
I’m done with the entry and that guy was looking for money, I gave him 20/- and he started like “Kya Jiii” - crazy cops!!! I asked him about HH and he said its 27KMs from here – you need to take few left turns thru all the way till you reach HH.
The road was comparatively okay after the AP boarder but still you may easily find a big patch / path hole KA roads were also okay and can be done at about 50-60 except those village limits where roads are really bad!
We took left from the “Welcome Horsley Hills” road sign and kept going on and on, I overlooked sign board on the left side for Punnami Resort and kept going ahead ~ 8 KMs on Cuddapah road; we came to know that we had to take left from the sign board 8 KMs back – U-turn – we again paid 10 Rs at the entrance of the ghat section (sign board of Punnami Resort), this time we got the receipt though. it was another 8KMs drive from here with few hairpin bands. I was climbing this with AC on + 4 kids and two of us in car; I pat my back again for the decision I took while buying me a small car
We gave 2 school girls and a boy ride in our car till Punnami from here – Kunni was quiet in the rear seat all this while
We reached Resort at around 1.20 in the noon and I have started looking at the rooms available. I asked them to book governor’s bungalow over the phone. However, I thought to have a look at what is available. There were all of them available – we were the only family in the resort today (Friday you know!). We had a look at the Whispering Winds, Governor’s bungalow, cottages and another type of accommodation close to reception. We decided to go for cottages; it’s cheapest among all if you go for just one half of the cottage. A small compound around the cottage, trees in the compound and a small back yard is what I like most about the cottage. Kunni said he can play cricket in the compound. However, if you look at the room it was not in a good shape. It’s equally far from restaurant and swimming pool.
We did not get to see “wind whistle” and other two types of accommodations, check that out. My guess is that should be the best where you can feel the valley from within the room itself.
This place is situated at an altitude of 1265 Mtrs. This place is named after W.D. Horsley who was the collector of Cuddapah district. He used to spend his summer time on this hill stations. I guess it was around 1864 or something as I saw a grave of George Horsley (S/O of WD Horsley) at the entrance of the Resort – apparently he died the same day he born (somewhere in 1864??)
We settled down in the room and immediately left for restaurant – don’t expect much during the weekdays – lunch / dinner not prepared on time (late), we did not find good food on Friday. However Saturday lunch was good comparatively (typical Andhra - spicy sambhar and rice); we enjoyed the food a lot on Saturday.
We went for a stroll around zoo (in front of reception) after lunch – birds, dears and other animals are really in poor condition here – if you look at their cages, looks like its not been cleaned for years. We saw crocodiles – there are about four of them. An environmental study center is also there in the same compound – there is a famous 150 year old eucalyptus tree “Kalyani” behind this environmental study center building.
Later in the evening, we moved towards swimming pool with a couple of beers – the pool is okay, water was clean. However crowd arrived lil later was not so decent and we decided to move out soon. We headed towards the sun set point now and it goes thru a step rock that you have to climb to get to the point. There are a few big rocks and one rock has a small cave kind-a cavity. We had a little photo session here; you can see all those small hills in the west and the other side is a valley – nice place to spend couple of hours with wife / girl friend. Not many activities in the evening (that’s why we were here).
We set outside the compound and I was ready to listen to my wife now for another 2 hours. The breezy wind was so cool and the sound of breeze through tree was awesome here (only then I realized that I should have checked “whistling wind” once). We finished dinner (they served only after 9 - Friday again) and set outside the cottage again for some more time. When asked, the care taker told us not to come out in the early morning or late in the night, there may be animals around. He was a new guy and I guess he was just building up based on stories he may have heard. I don’t think you can easily spot animals here.
Next morning, we wanted to start early for the valley view point that we could not visit previous day. Kunal spent some time learning how to operate the camera and went on and on for all useless (to us not to him) photographs. View Valley Point was the best place we have found till now. Nimi explored some surrounding areas and cliffs; I was simply sitting on a rock from where you can see all the surrounding hills in the west of this place and this rock is right on the edge – you can have a wonderful view of the valley from here. Looking at the kites (very few brahmini kites) floating few hundreds feet below the place you are sitting was really an awesome view.
I wanted to go to a rock (cliff) right in the front of us – the way to reach that place and the cliff at the edge seemed challenging; It was closed with some fencing (I can see that people have made their way to go thru the fence) – I could just think of going there and can’t really dare with my bodyguard (Nimi) around. All in all that place was awesome; we spend some very good moments (while kunni took some spy pics
) till sun came over the top and its started feeling hot there.
I’d read about the place that’s called malaigonda closeby, it’s a Shiva Temple (rather an abandoned Siva Temple) I asked the care taker and he told us that you can see few people around only on Monday and you will have to walk around 5 KMs to reach the temple – with my wife broke her sandals while exploring those rocks and becoming healthier day by day, I dropped this idea. We decided to have our lunch after we check-out. It was Saturday noon and I can see lot of people already arrived and occupying their rooms. Quite a few folks over lunch today and it was perfect. I really like the spicy sambhar and rice (worth mentioning again).
We started moving to the same route again at around 2.30. We read about a Shiva Temple while entering Chintamani. Entered a small village searching for the temple and landed up in about 1-2 kilometers of mud road –thru the fields to reach this temple. It was a small but quiet place with a huge banyan (!) tree in the compound of the temple covering the entire area. While returning from there we had to stop for few minutes again while Kunni was filling the camera memory with some woodpecker snaps – he gave that respect to those monkeys as well on the way. We stopped again at the same place in Chintamani because Nimi wanted to buy the same chocolates (hearts!) she bought previous day. We touched HSR layout at around 7.30 or so had nice meal at Krishna sagar…
Here is the weblink you can look at the pics
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TripMeter: 370KMs