Motorcycle trip to the Western Ghats

Place of Stay : Tusker valley in Attihally Sakleshpur

Nearby places covered Bisle Ghat view point, Mookana Mane Water Falls, Yedakumari Railway Track tunnel.

More of Transport : Kawasaki Ninja 650, KTM Duke 200

Total distance : Approx. 270 KMs one-way.

The route to reach the resort was ride to Nelamangala take the NH47 (Mangalore highway) Ride till Balupete take left towards Hethur, from Hethur continue on Kaginahare road - Take Right at Bachalli towards Attihally, Follow the direction board from Kattemane kudige(Attihally) to reach Tusker Valley.

Date of travel: Dec 21-23, 2018

Well I am one of the firm believer of 2>4 when it comes to enjoying the journey, so we decided to take on our respective motorcycles (me on my KTM duke 200 and my Friend Anand on his Kawasaki Ninja 650) and head out for an amazing weekend. The plan was to leave Bangalore by 2 PM and reach Tuskar valley by 7ish as the owner of the property had asked us to come before dark as there may be elephants in the final leg of journey which is in kaccha road and 3kms long.

Let me rewind and start from the beginning, as planned on a sunny afternoon of 21 st December 2018 we decided to meet at Nice road junction in Tumkur road by 2PM and start the journey, well as always we started from our respective starting point at 2Pm and reached nice road junction by 3PM and we started our amazing journey with lots of expectation and a bit of fear of running into the wild elephants at the end of journey.

As we had to reach the venue before dark we decided to cover as much distance as possible without stopping, and we did cover a lot of ground and managed to reach Balupete before dark. We followed the directions as told by the resort guys and we had also kept the maps on in our cell phone to be doubly sure in the dark. We reached Kattemane kudige in Attihally and had to take the final 3kms in kaccha road and this was the scary bit (fear of elephants). We did manage to reach the venue by 8 PM where we had asked the resort guys to keep the dinner ready.

Tusker valley resort

There are 2 options to stay at this resort one is dormitory and other is tents, we opted for tent as we were just 2 and it was lot more closer to the dining/kitchen area.

Dormitory

Dining/kitchen

Mud volley ball court

We had a nice dinner and a good sleep and we were up early and managed to capture some bird pictures

Common hooper

Asian openbill stork

After a small photo session in the resort premises we decided to get ready, have breakfast and start exploring nearby places. We decided to hire a pickup truck to take us to couple of destinations we choose (we paid 1500 for the service and the charge is for the pickup and not per person). 1 st on our list was the famous Yedakumari Railway Track tunnel. Well a bit of background here, a lot of trekking enthusiasts will agree with me in calling this one of the most famous trekking routes in Karnataka, and now I believe that trekking is banned completely in this route. We reached a point which was around a KM away from the track and we had to walk the last kilometre and we did enjoy the walk as there was lot of colourful butterflies in the route. We reached the tunnel and asked a track maintenance guy about train timings and made sure that there was no surprise trains coming our way when we enter the tunnel and walked through the tunnel. The tunnel was dark and smelled like bat.

The track (me in the pic)

The Tunnel (more than 650mtrs long)

Inside the tunnel

After the Tunnel trek we decided to cool off as it was too hot inside the tunnel and decided to head for a nearby water fall. The name of the water fall is Mookana Mane Water Falls and was very beautiful and calm place.

Mookana Mane Water Falls

Mookana Mane Water Falls

After the visit to this lovely water fall we headed back to tuskar valley for our Lunch. After lunch and an hour of rest we decided to take our bikes out and enjoy the pleasant evening and amazing roads of the Western Ghats. The place we choose to visit was Bisle Ghat view point it was some 20KMs from the resort and the route was scenic and lovely.

Bisle Ghat view point

After enjoying the breath-taking view of the Ghats we headed back to the resort for the resort for some snacks and we enjoyed the dinner at the resort (lot of loud music played as per request from other guests which was very disturbing as it may not go well with the wildlife around). Well the next morning we decided to skip the breakfast and head back to Bangalore with wonderful memories.