Fort Madhugiri

Well i had been covering forts in the tumkur district and one major fort eluded me in my quest -Madhugiri fort.After Nijagal, Devarayandurga, Channarayandurga, Midigeshi and Madakasira,finally Madhugiri is conquered :)

I parked my vehicle in front of the fort which coincidentally also houses a court complex.Started the trek @ 8:30 am.The climb is relatively easy and made good ground.
At the first level of the fort,one can spot a huge kalyani which is now dry unfortunately.There are some interesting rooms -the entry to which is dificult since there is some thick undergrowth.However i managed to check out these places.They seems to be massive granaries -since the there were no doors to these places ,except for a small opening for one person to enter.

The huge watchtower near the granary is simply majestic.As one climbs this watch tower ,one feels like a king literally :).Proceeding from here ,one has to climb a series of steps carved out of the rocks.The iron railings are missings/worn out and there are none now.The steep climb from here ,leads to a place which is the trickiest part of the fort.
One has to be very careful,since this climb to the entrance to the next level of the fort ,might be fatal if one slips from here.Meanwhile i noticed a few abonded footwear and i assumed somebody should be on the fort.While climbing this stretch it is advised that one climbs with barefoot.
After reaching level 2,the steps vanish,all that remains is faint carved steps in the rocks which again is very slippery.Thinking that i might be very near to the summit i reached the next level 3.Again the entrance to the place is a bit tricky and slippery.I reached this place thinking that i had reached the summit when i heard some voices,it turned out some local people had climbed the fort ahead of me and they were returning back.They posed for the snaps and i carried on.From here it becomes even tricker where one has to climb only on steep rockface.Due to rains recently there was some algae around and i had my heart in my mouth.


Finally i managed to reach the level 4 and the topmost level of the fort.Spent about half an hour clicking snaps and resting which is when i realised that during my climb i hadnt drank any water :) .Quickly had some water since i was very thirsty by then.I had delayed drinking water thinking everytime that the summit was just around the corner.

I climbed down slowly by around 11:30 am ,on the way i saw many people climbing up the fort.The climbdown-i enjoyed the gentle breeze blowing and took multiple breaks to enjoy the view from the fort.

I also liked the court complex below,which also houses a watch tower :).One the way back i decided to visit Kaidala

To be continued..

Charmadi ghat trek

Alekan falls-Balekalgudda-Kodekalgudda-Anadka falls

To start with i havent trekked much in the charmadi ghat ranges and was wondering about it.Thats when my friend Aravind GJ's blog caught my attention.After making all the enquiries me and my friend Mahantesh decided to go for this trek


I booked a Rajahamsa thinking that i will get down at Kottigehara in the charmadi ghats but my plans were squashed when the conductor mocked at me saying that rajahamsa dont go via the charmadi ghat.Nevertheless we reached dharmasthala at 5:15 am in the morning which was a blessing in disguise for us.As soon as we got down we got a bus headed towards shimoga via the charmadi ghat.

Checked with the conductor and the driver and they didnt know where the falls come ,i decided that we will get down before kottigehara and walk downhill instead of uphill.The morning was very pleasant and the walk was too good.We met a guy who scared us telling us not to venture into the gudda.He guided us to Alekan falls.We finished our morning ablutions and had breakfast which we had got.

We came to the road and we met a guy who told us that he was from the estate nearby and told us that there would be a auto which would bring labourers and we could take the same auto towards bidurutala village.Soon enough the Auto came by and we took it to reach bidurutale @Rs 30 :) .We started climbing the place which was quite steep.It took us about an hour to cover the steep 3km stretch with our heavy backpacks.We managed to reach the village when one guy was heading out and he was in a hurry .We dumped bags at his house and told him that we will return back for the evening.
He asked us to stick to the "kal-dari" and we did so,but after about 3 kms,the the path abruptly ended with thick shola jungle.It was impossible to move ahead since the undergrowth was full and we even couldnt see anything due to such thick growth.We took a left turn and climbed a small peak.I checked all the peaks and managed to pin-point Balekalgudda-the tallest of them all.Next was to figure out the route.Small calculation of going over the small hillocks would lead us to the peak.But i was worried since i thought there might be a valley which i would not be able to see and i was sure that if there is a valley there would be a shola forest there.Luckily we managed to reach Balekalgudda.The weather was very pleasant .We took a few snaps and decided to rest for a while atop the peak.

After spending about an hour on the peak,it began to get very windy,we decided to get down and check out Kodekalgudda which is right opposite to Balakalgudda,but again one has to climb down and go through a circuituos route since there is cliff and a valley between the peak and kodekalgudda.We slowly trekked along and reached kodekalgudda in about 45 minutes.By now the sun was playing hide and seek.We were exhausted by now and decided to rest for a while.I was wary since the place looked like an ideal habitat of bear.Didnt want to take any chances.Besides it was getting overcast and hence we decided to head towards bidurutale village ,our basecamp for the day.

After loosing our way a bit ,we managed to reach the village by 4pm .There were some tense moments when we ran out of water for a while ,thankfully we made it in one-piece to the village.We headed out to dharmasthala the next day ,dumped our bags in a room and we decided to hire a jeep to anadka falls.The return trip cost us about Rs600 which was well worth it since the driver also came with us a guide to show the falls.From didupe village one has to walk for about 3 kms through the village ,mountains and the cross the stream in between to reach the falls.The falls is simply amazing and one of the best i have seen till date.We both had a bath for about 45 mintues ,before decided to head back.




Came back had lunch at guruprasad hotel in ujire ,before heading back to dharmasthala .We had a bath ,had darshan and then headed back to bangalore by the 11pm bus

Fort Madakasira

After a 3 week jinx ,i finally decided to break the shackles and was on tender hooks as to when will i get out of bangalore

Started early by 5:20 am and headed to dobaspet via the nice road.Had a quick breakfast at the now usual hotel at madhugiri and moved on.Even as i was heading towards madakasira as fast as i could ,i couldnt resist the photo oppurtunity with plenty of birds on this route

Spent almost 30-40 minutes enroute in clicking snaps of the kingfishers and the parrots.Finally reached madakasira at around 9:30 am ,quickly started climbing the fort.

The small town has grown inside the walls of the fort and one has to wade through the street before entering the fort.After a brief period of about 20 mintues climb ,reached the amazing staircase which is surrounded by two huge rocks which are very tall.There is a lot of shade here and the one can enjoy the cool breeze blowing over the rock face.

Relaxed at this point for a while before heading for more ahead.The next stop was at the the viewpoint where one can find the amazing vistas of the madakasira town.

After clicking numerous snaps ,finally moved ahead.Here one can see two huge towers ,one of the biggest in the forts that i have come across in my visit to the forts.Relaxed a bit ,enjoying the the huge towers and sinking in the moment-had some oranges.It was getting sunny and decided to move ahead to explore the temple and the fort ahead.There is a small kalyani here and temple of lord shiva.

There is a open space with rock boulders just behind this ,meandered through this place which finally leads to a flight of steps to the top of the fort,decided to give it a miss since there was a gang of monkeys and i have had bad experiences once before in shivagange.

There are no decent places to eat in madakasira ,i had packed mosaranna ,so managed to survive the scare.I had my food just outside hemavathy .It was simply blazing hot ,rested for a while under some tree shade.Hemavathy is about 35 kms from Madakasira and is home to panchaligeshwara built by Nolumbas in the 10 century.

The temple complex also has a ASI musuem.The temple has some intricately carved sculptures.One unique thing about this place is Lord shiva can be seen in the Manava Akara which is unique.Apart from this the giant Nandi in front of each of the temple complexes is another unique thing about this place.Headed back to bangalore,which was uneventful this time around

3 Day trip Agumbe-shringeri-mulyanagiri

Oct 2-3-4

This trek was organized by Yhai-chandru.As usual set out in the TT,we arrived early morning at Doddamane -a homestay.The place is said to be about 120 years old ,it is looked after by Kasturamma The place is quite huge ,has got a tiled roof,lots of wooden pillars.We quickly got freshed up .By then breakfast was ready-Ricebath.Had them and we were ready to head towards our first point - Barkana falls view-point.

As we reached the point it started raining heavily,it was indeed a sight to be enjoyed.the whole place was green.We initially had to cross a waist high stream which was flowing in full throttle.Enroute we encountered several small and big streams.the water in the streams is worth drinking and had quite a few gulps enroute. It took us a little over an hour to cover the 6km stretch.The entire valley was covered with mist and we couldnt see anything,but
the walk through this decent stretch was quite a good experience.We returned back and then headed towards Jogi-gundi-another water falls.This was just about 2 kms of walk and the falls was just awesome in the monsoon.The water increased by almost 30% in the 15 minutes we stayed there.There was no way we could enter the falls area ,we soaked in the moment and started back.

We walked backed to the homestay.i bought myself a new umbrella nearby since the umbrella i bought was leaking due the heavy rain.We had lunch and rested for a while .We then headed to the Agumbe rainforest research station.Vipul gave us quite a bit of information about the research they undertake and what sort of work they are into.We decided to head toward the famous sunset point -again we were dissapointed due to the heavy fog-but all the while
enjoying the rain in Agumbe.


The next day we headed towards Kundadri betta-a jain shrine is said to be atop this scenic hill.The trek was along the winding road and the vistas as we walked ahead to the summit was worth watching.The summit has a jain shrine which remains locked.For a brief moment we
got a view of the plains from here since the entire area was covered by fog till then.The scenary from here will just blow you off your feet.Contended we headed to Sirimane falls-A good shallow
place for people to enjoy bathing in the falls.Even this falls was overflowing with heavy water output.I had a bath since the next destination was shringeri.Visited the temple ,had a fanstastic
darshan of sharadadevi and then headed for lunch at the temple.

Next destination was Mulyangiri ,we decided to halt at the sethalyanagiri devasthana.Travelling under heavy fog with zero visibility was quite a task.We hit the bit and it was raining heavily.The next morning was no better ,covered by thick fog.We decided to trek through the hills for a bit before we realized it would be futile ,we ended up trekking on the road.Soon after we again hit the grasslands up a decent hill.Here we were caught with winds of over 60 kmph and it was raining as well.People couldnt stand their ground.Finally we reached the summit with great
difficulty.The return back was uneventful -peppered with heavy rain and wind.We decided that it was time to head back home.Enroute we managed to stop at Belur-any number of visits to this place does not bore me at all.

The best part of this trip was rain-my favourite season.One has to experience the rains in the malnad region to know what monsoon really is.Hospitality of Kasturamma makes the homestay a really good experience

Fort Midigeshi

Date : 9/10/2009
History : The name Midigeshi is made up of 2 words Midi or himmadi-which means ankle in english and keshi means Hair. So there was once a queen who ruled this place who had long hair till her ankles and hence the name Midikeshi or Midigeshi.This place was steaming with political activity in its hey days and also has seen lot of bloodshed.History dates back to 9th century but Midigeshi gained prominence in the 16th century.

Source : My guide to history- Mr M.R Vijayashankar Metikurke

Started the day a little late and i was the culprit this time,i was late by about 25 minutes on this trip.Packed breakfast,fuel stop @shell and headed towards the nice road.I was joined by Pratibha and her friend Kiran on this trek.At about 8:30 am ,we were slighlty ahead of Devarayandurga when we decided to have breakfast,stopped the car and hogged on the
idlies that we had got.It was pleasant morning with lots of birds around the place.

We reached Midigeshi at around 10 am.An old man was curious to know as to why we were there ,he suspected as a part of the central govt employees who have come to assess the place :) .We convinced him that we had come there to see the fort,he insisted that we take a guide to show us the place.

Puttaraju would be our guide for the day,he said that he would join us in 10 minutes since he had to have his food,till then we decided to explore the ancient venkateshware temple at the base of the fort ,a small yet beautiful temple ,we finished clicking pictures by then Puttaraju -our guide was waiting for us show us around.Initial climb is a easy ,though one encounters loose gravel at certain places.

This fort can only be climbed from one side,after the intial easy clime,one encounters a steep cliff,one has to be careful while climbing this part of the fort.After this is there are is a fleet of steps.The steps slide towards one side and are very smooth in some areas ,one has to very careful here.Also one has to be careful not to look down from this place ,one can see the steep ascent made which can be hair-raising to say the least.We enter the the main entrance gate of the fort here.One can see the majestic strong walls of the fort with the the gun-slots and the canon points





















As we moved further ,we could spot the ammunition storage area,we decided to explore it ,a 3 roomed area which was once the house of several types of ammunition.It is slightly tricky to approach this area since this place is lower than the ground level except for the roof ,there was dense undergrowth all around ,so we had to walk over the doom of the roof to enter this place.Finally we headed towards the summit -were one can spot the Minaret which is basically a tomb of erstwhile ruler

One can also checkout the rooms to stay one of which has a bathing area as well.Another important aspect of the rooms is that they have a small opening on the roof which was meant to be a natural ventilation opening ,a latch to this seems to be missing according to me.

Two huge ragi storage areas can also be spotted here.At the other end ,a little downhill is another living area with a water storage area.This water storage area has never dried till date apparently according to Puttaraju.We decided against exploring this place since the route was quite a steep climb down .

We took a deep breath sinked in the moment ,sun was blazing down ,puttaraju suggested that we start back since it is going to get more hot by the time we go down.We slowly started our trek downhill.Downhill was easy ,Puttaraju suggested we remove our footwear since it might be very slippery.We reached the base of the fort by around 1 pm.We drank water from the borewell
nearby and decided to rest as the sun was just blazing down.As soon as we settled down we spotted quite a few birds there -the priced catch was the woodpecker

According to Puttaraju,wildlife spotted by him include Bears,civet cat,fox,leopard-which has also killed livesstock

We also checked out an old jain temple -Bhagawan Suparshwanatha in the kayotsarga posture,renovation is underway at this temple now ,the folks where more than keen to show us the idol which was kept in a adjacent building.By now we were exhausted ,we headed to the nearest shop and gulped down some cold drinks which was when the body came back to normalcy :)

We had some lunch @ madhugiri and headed back .On the way back we decided to check out Goruvanahalli Lakshmi devasthana ,had darshan there.There is a dam called teetha ,relaxed there and headed back to bangalore .All in all a good day spent.

Acknowledgement : This place was first written by Srinidhi Raghavendra in deccan herald.

Aiyur

I was wondering what to do on the weekend when sid told me about aiyur reserveforest.So
i decided to join him and two other folks from his office who were coming for this trip. We were to join ashish-sids friend at electronic city,luckily i got a direct bus to electronic city ,reached there by 9am,had to wait for a while before sid and his friends joined us.

We headed towards hosur,passing through country side enjoying spotting birds,some amazing pleasant weather.We reached a small hamlet where we decided to have lunch.The lunch was simply amazing to say the least.Hot sambhar and rice -it just made my day :)

We headed towards the aiyur forest,spent some time at the water hole,nice cool atmosphere with gentle breeze blowing.shortly thereafter we visited the spider valley home to some unqiue spiders which is why the name.

Spent some time at the valley,then on the way back we visited the watch tower.Headed back by 5pm ,had coffee on the way back,reached back home by 8pm,all in all it was a good relaxing ಡೇ

Fort Pavagada

Fort pavagada is situated right inside -in the heart of the city.There is a small rock cut anjaneya swamy temple also called kote anjaneya swami at the bottom of the fort ,we prayed to lord anjaneya and started our trek by about 10:30 am

We started climbly slowly as the heat was simply too much -this place is mostly plains with a few mountains here and there.We were soon joined by a bunch of kids and we enjoyed a lot by talking to them and climbing up the fort.



This fort is well kept inspite of its non maintenance .We hardly found anybody in the fort on that day.A local guy called sadanand soon began showing us around the fort.

Once we reached the top of the fort,one can see a massive well which is supposed to be very deep.one can see the place of the simhasana with 2 elephants at the entrance in the open air.There are numerous watch towers at the top one can explore.We checked out the underground entrance which is supposed to run to a place somewhere in the city,one can explore this underground route if one comes prepared.

We then headed to a place which is supposed to be the coolest place on the fort,this place is apparently the place where the fort stored its milk products in two huge mud mounds.this place is surprisingly cooler even to this day.

By now we could see rains approaching and decided to check out the bheemna donne.We checked out this natural water storage place -the water here is supposed to be very sweet-also called bheemana donne.By now it started pouring heavily and we took shelter at one of the shelters at the corner of the fort .

My friend prashanth had got something to eat and we all shared the eatables. We then checked out the shelter areas for the soldiers.The kid was about to throw the wrapper of the chips ,when i told him not to do so and to dispose all rubbish at dustbins only,impressing upon them to conserve nature and how it could degrade nature.Meekly he told that nobody ever told this to me.I dont hold the kid responsible -but it is high time the schools inculcate such small things which can go a long way in preserving nature.
Being the month of ramzan some kids headed straight to the small mosque in the fort.The pouring rain brought the temperature down much to my delight.This is one of my best experiences of a fort till date.

By now the kids and the guy who showed us around wanted to take our leave and we thanked them for showing us around and giving us some very good company.The rain showed no signs of reducing.thankfully after about 15 minutes rain stopped and we decided to head to the topmost part of the fort.Just as we were moving ahead ,the natural swimming pool caught out attention-the really was impressed by the way they made best use of the natural areas around the fort.

We then headed to the topmost tier of the fort-the view from this place will just sweep you of your feet.We then started our descent from the fort.The sun came came out blazing and i had a tough time in the heat.We soon headed for bangalore in my maruti 800.

One can also visit the shani temple which again is very near to the fort.Also just on the outskirts of the city is kanive lakshmi narasimhaswamy devasthana ,although it was locked we prayed from outside and headed back to bangalore.

Pavagada is 180 kms from bangalore and i am glad i made it in 3 hours on the way back :)

ps: the approach to the fort in the beginning is slightly dirty ,so please watch out