Sakleshpur is one of the smallest hill station in the Western Ghats. It is located in the Hassan district in Karnataka. In other words, its not much far from Bangalore(230 km). It has been famous for its landscape surrounded by slopes covered with tea and coffee plantations and spices. The sweeping mountain view from the 18th century star shaped Manjarabad Fort has been one of the major tourist attraction in Sakleshpur.
Its an appropriate venue for a weekend outing. Myself with 6 of my friends planned to explore Sakhleshpur in one of the weekends in November 2018. To make it more interesting and adventurous, we made it a bike trip from Bangalore.Everybody was eagerly waiting for the bike ride.
We planned to start very early in the morning considering the fact that we have to ride 230 km from Bangalore and that would need at least 5 to 6 hours. We were riding to Sakhleshpur in Royal Enfields (3 thunderbirds and 1 classic). We started at 4 AM sharp. We took NH75 connecting Hassan. The road condition was pretty good to maintain a speed of 90km/h on average. The three of the bikes were having pillion but even for the pillion the ride was never boring. The landscape around and the early morning weather was a perfect mood swinger. We took multiple halts on the way to make sure none of us feel tired and the bike engines should get enough time to cool down.
We reached Sakhleshpur by 2Pm. We got late by few hours as we took too many halts on the way. We had booked a resort in the outskirts. As we all were tired, we decided not to go anywhere. We spent the entire day in the resort gaining some energy for the next day. The mercury dropped after the sunset. We had a lovely time in front of the bonfire at night.
Next morning we woke up early as we know we have to cover lot of places as we were already running late. We had our breakfast quickly from the resort and started our ride towards the Manjarabad Fort. The roads inside Sakhleshpur were not that good. Bikers have to be very careful while taking sharp turns. It was a tiring climb to the fort. We spent a lot of time at the fort exploring the ancient architecture and the sculptures and clicking some good photos.
We later on decided to visit Bettada Byraveshwara temple-the ancient lord Shiva temple built by the pandavas. The road condition was horrible. It took almost 1.5 hours to ride 40 km. Although, the temple was closed by the time we reached there but the greenery and the silence in the forest gave some peace to our mind.
After visiting the temple, we decided to return to the resort. As the day was already tiring we thought of staying indoors and rest for the later half of the day. In the evening, we together decided to go to the Shettihalli Church instead of visiting the Bisle Ghat view point on the next day.
We started our journey to wards the Shettihalli church as per our plan. The road condition was good. The Google maps helped us to find the best route. The place was actually very good to take some good photos. But it was very hot also. We quickly took some good photos and returned to the resort as we had to checkout and leave for Bangalore.
We started riding towards Bangalore at 3pm. Once we hit the highways, the roads were good and well maintained. We did not get much traffic till we got inside Bangalore. We were able to reach our homes by 9pm.
The Sakhleshpur trip was our first bike trip. I hope this is not our last... :) Its still the best trip that we ever had...
Some suggestions for the bikers who are traveling to Sakhleshpur for the first time.
1. Always wear helmets and use proper gears during the ride
2. Do not take excessive of luggage as it may be a problem for the pillion to carry if there are no carriers installed in the bike
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