Going to a trip with your office colleagues isn’t as easy as it sounds.
It can’t involve taking leave, because then how will all of us working in the same office, in my case same team, avail leave on same day(s)! It can’t involve too many people, or you will never be able to agree on one thing. Your group can’t be too small, because then it’s just no fun! Phew!
Anyway, after considering all the above things, it all came down to a weekend trip for us, a team of five guys. Which necessarily meant, somewhere close by (from Bangalore, where we are based), because we need to be back by Sunday afternoon. Travel hangovers are the worst.
Yercaud is a beautiful little hill station, not as popular as other nearby places such as Ooty, Coonoor or Kodaikanal – which meant, we won’t have to endure much crowd. It’s also just about 230km from Bangalore, so we finalized on it.
On a nice & early October Saturday morning, me & my friend Ashish, started from my home, on my trusty Hyundai Xcent, picking the rest of the gang on the way – 5 of us in total, including Hemant, Pravat & Prasanna. In about 6am, we reached the Electronic City flyover, which would take us out of the city. Hemant switched to the driver seat, him being a much faster driver than me.
So, fast we rode, competing with the sun quickly climbing up the horizon. As we left Bangalore behind, the route became more & more scenic. This trip was as much about the drive, as much it was of sight-seeing, so we were enjoying the drive to the fullest. The endless green mountains at both side didn’t disappoint us.
We stopped a couple of times, once in a small restaurant near Krishnagiri for a tea-break, and then at an A2B in Dharmapuri for a filling breakfast. Around 8.30 in the morning we had reached Salem city, to the left of which lied the beautiful little hilly town of Yercaud. I took the driving wheels back as the most interesting road was about to come – the famous 20 hairpin bend of Yercaud.
We made our way through city traffic in 30 minutes and reached the toll booth of Yercaud, right at the bottom of the uphill highway with 20 hairpins. I lowered the gears and started the ascend.
It was an absolutely beautiful drive! The hairpins were sharp and looked challenging, but as the roads were in great condition, my Xcent made the climb effortlessly. As we kept going up, the warm city climate was far from us and we started feeling the chilliness of Yercaud. The constant view of the exotic green valley downwards, kept us excited.
By 10am, we had reached green & pretty Yercaud, with the Yercaud lake at its center. We had booked a cottage slightly far from the main town – Fernhill Cottage. The place looked great in the pictures, but seeing it right in front of us was something else. It was a nice & cosy villa, with a large garden and mini-hairpin drive-by, surrounded by the forest. A perfect place to stay the weekend, away from city’s hustle-bustle. We had a few places in our sightseeing list, so we quickly freshened up and started our tour. First stop was Karadiyur view-point, 6km from our cottage, further deep into the forest.
At most hill stations like this, the only places to see are just points at hills, where you get the best scenic view of the surrounding mountains & valleys. Some of such points get too popular due to social media and draw a huge crowd. That’s why, we stayed away from those conventional points, e.g. Ladies seat, Children’s seat, and went towards Karadiyur, which was not so popular, but equally scenic.
The roads were narrowing down and at some sections, it was not easy letting incoming cars pass. But it was a comfortable drive nonetheless. Parking our car, we walked the rest of the rocky road towards Karadiyur. Besides us, the place had just one tourist couple and a few shopkeepers.
We quickly hogged the viewpoint and turned our cameras on. Wherever our eyes could go, we saw only green, lush deep green.(cover image at the top) With nothing else to do there, we left after a great photo session.
Next on our list, was Kiliyur falls. But the hilly roads didn’t let us drive very fast and jump-started our hunger. So, we decided to head on for lunch first, to a very recommended restaurant – Sweet Rascal. When we reached there, close to 1.30pm, we realized it’s an appointment-only process and food will only be ready by 2.30 or 3pm. So, we placed our order and headed towards our original destination.