[GForceEnjoyer]

Prologue:

Right after my half-yearly exams and the SAT, school let out for Dussehra, meaning that I had a nearly two-week long vacation. Had this been any other school year, we would surely have embarked on yet another ambitious road trip on the morning of the first holiday. However, as I’m a 12th grader at the time of writing, I had college applications which needed a few days’ worth of work.

Hence, the rough plan we had once made to drive to either Munnar or Valparai was shelved (perhaps this can be done sometime after I graduate ). Once I was done with my work, we began debating between two options: flying down to Kochi, renting a car and driving to Munnar, or driving to someplace within a day’s drive from Hyderabad. In the end the latter choice won, since flight tickets were ridiculously priced.

Narrowing it down:

After some research, we shortlisted Chennai (and Pondicherry), Tirumala and Horsley Hills as possible destinations. Whenever you're having a tough time deciding which place to visit, it actually pays to think a bit outside the box and pick up the calendar! We were soon nudged out of indecisiveness by the fact that Dussehra celebrations were soon to begin in full swing. For this, we decided to drive down to Bangalore to spend some time with family there.

Hence, after an elaborate idea screening process, we hatched a plan to drive to Horsley Hills, stay the night and then depart for Bangalore the following afternoon. It made perfect sense, considering that Bangalore is just 150 kilometres ahead.

Once again, this was a last-minute trip, with my dad and I figuring out the route and places of interest merely a couple of days before we began. I have to say, there is a significant element of fun and surprise in trips like these!

Total distance covered: 1484.7 kilometres.
The car: 2021 Skoda Superb L&K.
Photography equipment: My Redmi 9 Prime (and on occasion, a Redmi Note 11 Pro).

The route:



On to the travelogue!

[GForceEnjoyer]

Horsley Hills:

The weather in Hyderabad was unusually hot, especially for this time of the year. Hence, we felt that a getaway to a hill station was called for. Horsley Hills (also known as Yenugulla Mallamma Konda) is a group of hills in Andhra Pradesh that stand out heavily compared to their parched and dry surroundings due to their greenery. The name comes from W.D. Horsley, whose home was built upon the tallest hill in the latter half of the 19th century.

On the morning of the 20th of October, we set out for Horsley Hills. Here is the route we followed. By setting out early in the morning, you can manage to shave off over an hour of travel time.


To anyone driving from Hyderabad in the near future, please take note of the diversions on NH-44 soon after leaving Hyderabad city limits. In addition, there is a flyover being constructed right after exiting the ORR at exit 16, meaning that the existing road is in poor condition. Leave early in the morning to avoid the inevitable traffic jams on this stretch. After that, it’s smooth sailing.

You reach Orvakallu Rock Gardens just in time for lunch (if you take the route via NH-40 after Kurnool, that is). We had already visited twice before in the Fiesta, so it was not new to us. However, if you have time to spare, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Soon after NH-40 becomes a single carriageway, the landscapes abruptly change. From behind the seemingly endless plains peppered with rock formations, lush green hills suddenly rise into view!






The roads become twisty and enjoyable, also leading to some beautiful views. Photos can’t capture how fast you gain elevation here! The road is so wide that you can’t truly feel its gradient. Your car definitely can, though: the Superb simply refused to upshift to fourth gear on the way up!




By the time we crossed Rayachoty, the sun was getting low, which meant that I could not capture the beautiful road leading up to Horsley Hills. It is an enjoyable (albeit short) stretch with a few tight hairpins. This road is also very steep, something once again reflected in how quickly the view changes as you ascend.

The actual town is very small, barely a 10–15-minute walk. Hence, you can just park your car at the hotel and roam on foot. The weather gets pleasantly chilly at night, especially because of the wind.

Now, even if you’re not a morning person, you absolutely HAVE to see the sunrise from this place. Wear a pair of good shoes and climb the rocks to the sunrise point (approximate path highlighted in red). Depending on the time of the year, get there roughly half an hour prior to the actual sunrise to get the best experience. We got there around 5:30 am.


I’ll let two pictures do the rest of the talking.




The golden morning light then gave rise to these shots.




I felt as though I was in literal heaven. One thing I love is hiking. Another thing I love is the cold wind. Yet another thing I love is the mountain views. That morning combined this holy trinity, making waking up at 5:00 am absolutely worthwhile.

A shot of the sun getting higher in the sky.


After spending a good hour and a half watching the sunrise, we then walked across town to multiple other viewpoints. It’s a very pleasant walk around Horsley Hills, an incredibly green place liberally shaded by eucalyptus trees.

It was a hazy day, but the way the view changed at each of the viewpoints was a sight to behold.






A couple of hours before lunchtime, we set out for Bangalore. I’ll highlight the route details in the next post. For now, here is the beautiful road to Horsley Hills in all its daylight glory.




All the lush vegetation is very soothing to the eye.


Horsley Hills is a fitting place for R&R, especially if you're a nature lover. There is a trek to the very top of the hill that one can embark upon too, upon the completion of which you would have a full 360 degree view of the surrounding landscape. Had we known about this earlier, we definitely could have given it a try!

The lands below.


A parting shot of the Superb basking in the sun, overlooking the plains. A blue beauty surrounded by green beauty!

[GForceEnjoyer]

Bangalore, day 1:

Our first stop was the HAL Heritage Centre and Aerospace Museum, an absolute must-visit for anyone interested in aviation. Helpful signboards are also placed next to all the displays with specifications such as classification, thrust, maximum climb rate, dimensions, range, etc. In fact, their collection of aircraft is so vast that I honestly think this place deserves a dedicated review of its own! Hence, I shall restrict myself to the overall experience here.

As soon as you enter, you are greeted by this MIG-21 Bison Trainer. The MiG-21 is the most produced supersonic jet in history. A total of 840 have even been produced in India.


This is the HAL Ajeet (the name is Sanskrit for “invincible”), an improved version of the Folland Gnat fighter jet which was originally manufactured by HAL under licence. Introduced in 1977 and phased out in 1991, this aircraft type was in service for a very short period of time, especially when compared to the likes of the MiG-21.


Now this is where my visit to the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum on the last trip helped me out. Here’s a photo from there. The next two photos will now make lots of sense.


Now, you can see that this is a radial engine. In this configuration, the axes of all the cylinders lie on the same plane. The crankshaft is in the centre of them all, which is what spins the propeller. This was a very common type of aircraft engine configuration before the advent of turbine engines.


Meanwhile, this is an opposed piston engine. Here, the cylinders have no head, and have pistons at both ends. This configuration reduces the height of the engine, while also being relatively lightweight and simple as there is no cylinder head and valve-train.


You can easily spend a couple of hours properly exploring the museum. There are other interesting things such as a control tower antenna on display too.


There is a hall of fame that has a pictorial record of significant happenings at HAL right from the time of its inception up to the current year. If you’re keen on history, you’ll love it. This place gets a 10/10 according to me, and was a morning incredibly well spent.

For the latter part of the day, we headed to St Mark’s Road and Church Street to spend some time walking around. It was a very enjoyable walk, especially owing to Bangalore’s wonderful weather. The icing on the cake however, was the insane number of interesting cars I came across. From modified first-generation Honda Citys to street-parked Porsche 911s to even a Ferrari 295 GTB, every third car on the road caught my eye. Not to mention the fact that it seemed as though half of India’s BMW M340is and Skoda Octavia VRSes were in Bangalore!

We visited a much-recommended chocolate shop, Smoor, in the evening. I would also highly recommend it to any chocolate connoisseur. As a dark chocolate lover, I loved the 78% dark mousse: a wonderful (and sinful) indulgence!

Here’s a modified Honda Accord V6 that I saw during the day in the parking lot.


We then spent the evening at the UB City mall, probably the fanciest mall I’ve been to so far in India. There was even an Audi RS e-tron on display!



St Mark’s Road at night is a sight to behold. From being almost deserted during the day, it turns into a bustling, full-fledged high street.


Meanwhile, here are a couple of parting shots: random photos I took while having a gelato at UB City. If you zoom in on the second photo, you can spot a model of a Kingfisher Airlines Airbus A380 suspended from the roof of the lobby. I was very intrigued by this, considering that the airline was shut down before it could take delivery of its first A380, which meant that it would have become the first airline in India to operate it.



A random fact: a similar situation occurred with Kingfisher’s Airbus A340-500s, except the planes had already been built to their exact specifications when they were shut down. Some of them ended up with Azerbaijan Airlines, which was the very last airline to keep the A340-500 in commercial service. In fact, the planes still had Kingfisher's red cabin!

[GForceEnjoyer]

Bangalore, day 2:

After a scrumptious breakfast of Neer Dosa and vegetable stew at my dad’s friend’s place, we set out for Cubbon Park. We passed by it several times on our previous trip, but never actually visited it. It’s a wonderful place to just unwind and spend some time in the shade of the trees.

The Superb parked under the towering trees.


Even with the sun almost directly overhead, it was a very pleasant walk, thanks to Bangalore's weather.


The Karnataka high court shares a boundary with Cubbon Park, visible through the gazebo in this photo.


These views reminded me a lot about my visit to New York City’s central park a few years ago. It’s pretty easy to see why:




After concluding a very enjoyable visit to Cubbon Park, we drove by the majestic Vidhan Soudha. It’s vast size makes it incredibly difficult to photograph in its entirety!


Alas, our time in Bangalore had come to an end with this. We headed back to spend a last evening with family before turning in for the night, set to return to Hyderabad the next morning.

Here’s a parting shot of the Superb with the Karnataka high court and the incredible greenery of Cubbon Park in the background. The Lava Blue shade looks striking in the sun!

[GForceEnjoyer]

The drive back:

Once again, leaving early in the morning shaved off well over an hour of time for us. We had planned for the return drive to fall on the day of Dussehra (October the 24th) on purpose to make the most of the sparse traffic. This really paid off: we managed to get out Bangalore in no time at all with the speedometer not moving an inch from 80 km/h on the ORR.


As always, Bangalore-Hyderabad is a very pleasurable drive with great roads 99% of the way.


Now, there is something very interesting on this route that’s worth a mention. It’s called the SEOUL STORE PENUKONDA - Google Maps. It’s got a ton of Korean made groceries available for purchase. Take a look at the drink cans that greet you as you enter, for example.


Meanwhile, right above it is a fantastic Korean restaurant, with options for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians (although the non-vegetarian options seemed significantly more appealing to me, which is what I went with). It’s located a short while before Anantapur, and we reached it just in time for lunch.

Here's the factory of Kia India!




Afterwards, it was all smooth sailing back to Hyderabad. We were treated to this stunning sunset on the way:




Sports mode in the Superb is an absolute blast for highway driving, and the fact that it barely affects fuel economy is insane! We covered a total of 1484.7 kilometres on this trip.


Apart from some sections before the Kadapa-Bangalore highway, the roads were flawless throughout, including the wonderful twisty road that approaches Horsley Hills. In fact, I’d recommend spending two nights there and not one, so that you can trek to the hilltop to view the sunrise. In addition, the pleasant weather and the small size of the town makes for really enjoyable evening walks.

Epilogue:

Sometimes, revisiting a place you weren't able to explore properly can actually turn out to be very fun. time, since you receive a sense of accomplishment upon visiting all the spots you'd wanted to visit the last time, but couldn't. Combine that with visiting some entirely new places on the same trip, and you've got yourself a wonderful vacation ahead of you! For the icing atop the cake, make this trip in your own car. Perfection.

To conclude this little travelogue, here are two shots of the Superb overlooking absolute nothingness at our hotel in Horsley Hills.




Until next time, cheers!

[graaja]

Moving thread from Assembly Line to Travelogues section. Thank you for sharing!

[jono213]

Great read!, The superb looks excellent as usual. What was the FE that you got during the trip?

[the.city]

Great travelogue! Any recommendations on hotels in Horsely Hills? This place has been in my to-visit list for a while but I've heard the Harita there is rather dingy. I can see some other hotels on Maps but hard to make out if any of them are clean/well-kept.

[GForceEnjoyer]

Originally Posted by jono213

Great read!, The superb looks excellent as usual. What was the FE that you got during the trip?

Thanks man! During city driving in Bangalore, it was mostly around 7-10 km/l, while on the highway it jumped to its peak of 15.6 km/l (Hyderabad's traffic lowered it at the end).

Originally Posted by the.city

Great travelogue! Any recommendations on hotels in Horsely Hills? This place has been in my to-visit list for a while but I've heard the Harita there is rather dingy. I can see some other hotels on Maps but hard to make out if any of them are clean/well-kept.

Thanks a lot! We stayed at VSR Wind Wave. It's pretty new, but well located. Nothing too fancy, but does the job in a place where you'd spent all day outside anyway.

[Srinivas C]

Seriously: You're a 12th grade kid ! Which school are you in?

[NTO]

Fantastic Travelogue. Thank you for sharing. Looking at the gate of the hotel, I stayed in the same hotel in the wooden cottages to the left of where your Superb is parked. The only nice stay in Horseley hills! My stay was around September last year. The restaurant served tasty food but they were slow as a tortoise in their service. I hope they’ve improved in this aspect in one year.

Attaching a picture of my Thar from the nothingness your Superb is looking on to.

[GForceEnjoyer]

Originally Posted by NTO

Fantastic Travelogue. Thank you for sharing.

The restaurant served tasty food but they were slow as a tortoise in their service. I hope they’ve improved in this aspect in one year.

Thanks for the kind words! They served our food reasonably quickly, so I guess they definitely have improved there.

Attaching a picture of my Thar from the nothingness your Superb is looking on to.

Your Thar looks great on the rocks, right at home! Visiting in the rains must have led to some stunning views.