hiwayREBELS

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

FAQs

1. Membership - Anybody intrested in bike travel can join us. Having a bike to ride is the entry pass for hiwayREBELS!

2. Membership is free. Expenses in the trips are paid by the biker for himself

3. Destination - A less commercial destination is usually preffered. All members will vote on destination before every trip. Most voted destination will be finalised.

4. Riding distance per day depends on the trip. So far it has been a maximum of 400km a day.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

"Mekedatu" conquest by hiwayREBELS

Weekend was around the corner and as always, there came a zeal to satisfy our quest for adventure. This time our destination was Mekedatu, a place 90kms from Bangalore towards Kanakpura. This place is famous for the gorge, where river Cauvery can be seen passing between the two huge rocks and the water sqashing against the rocks with a great current.

We started off early morning at 6.30am on Saturday, 1st July 2006, to avoid the sun, from Bangalore, with our bike tanks full and with some basic necessities. The weather was clear and Kanakpura road was not that busy, except for a few trucks. On the way after driving for around 30kms, we came across a place that had a lake surounded by lot of coconut trees.

After having a small break, we headed towards Kanakpura which was our next stop. We had breakfast at Kanakpura and after getting ourselves refreshed, we moved to make our final stop, "MEKEDATU", which was just 40kms ahead. The road was not very comfortable except for some patches, as the way lead us to a quite remote place, remote enough to make our phone signals go off.

We had to park our bikes in a place, as we had to cross a river and from there we had a trek of 4 kms to reach the place we had started for, or we could have taken a bus from the other side of the river to reach the spot. The river can as well be crossed on foot when the amount of water is less, in summers. The trek was inside a jungle with no proper road. Alongside we could see the Cauvery flowing with its current. After reaching the place, we could see that there was Cauvery flowing with a great speed between two huge rocks.

We were tired and felt hot as now the sun was on its peak, we spent some time in water, we could not go too much in the water as the current was enough to take us with the flow. Then after spending some time on the rocks near the river, we decided go back, where we had identified a place that was good enough for us to take a dip in the river.

We returned back to the place where we had parked our bikes and had some food in the shops that were there. We then moved towards the Chunchi falls, that were around 20kms from Mekedatu. After reaching the falls, the first image that i got was not what we expected. It was a steep slope without water to be seen anywhere. We parked our bikes and decided to go down and see, as we went down, we could see a waterfall, between the rocks.

There was not much water, but the place is not suitable for water games due to marsh and Crocodiles in the ponds. After spending some time there we started back towards Bangalore. We stopped for some snacks and tea in Kanakpura and drove back, with the memories of the places we had visited. Yet ready for another conquest.

- Varun
For snaps, checkout our photo gallery

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Mission Sivana Samudram - Photos

Sivanasamudram - 6th May 2006

mAsTi @ CoOrG - Photos

Friday, June 23, 2006

mAsTi @ CoOrG

After being postponded several times finally we are going to COORG. It was 6 PM 16th friday 2006 and we are waiting for Yogesh to wind up work and come. Rains threatened us as we were filling fuel at a nearby fuel station. Despite all odds we were determined to conquer COORG no matter what. Atlast Yogesh met us at the fuel station we went to pack Yogesh's stuff. Finally it was around 7pm when we actually started. As we started rain pour out, we were totally drenched well before we crossed city limits.

At 8pm ewe are at Yeshwantpur where Yogesh had to collect some stuff from his house there. Meanwhile the rest of the gang Addi, Biru and me(Huez) had a nice dinner as if we wont eat the next day! Yog arrived half hour latter and we hit the road towards Hassan. Our plan was to reach Hassan that night and sleep the night away there and the next day morning to start towards COORG.

Yog was our Route manager for this trip. He recommended Bisle Ghat, BIdalli which are on the route from Sakleshpur to Madikeri. Our plan was to visit these places on saturday before reaching madikeri that night. On sunday Talacauvery and Abi falls and possibly a treck were on the cards.

By this time the rain had stopped taking pity on the bikers. The road was amazing with not even a single pothole! but the road was little wet that gave us little concern on our speed. But that didnt stop our Ace biker Biru from zooming at 100 km/hr. Biru always tempt me with speeds and I decided to over take the master blaster. The sky was still cloudy and no stars were seen scaring us with signs of rain again. We had a break at Bellur cross near a medical college to energise ourselves. Biru as usual didnt miss this chance to talk to his girlfriend over phone. As the lover boy is neck deep with his sweet nothings we were having lots of tea and chips. I really like the breaks between the bike journey. This is the time we share about the best section of the road or ones top speed so far or plan for the next break!

Hassan was 200 km from bangalore and we reached there aroun 1pm. We found an affordable lodging and soon we sunk on our bed. As usual I had a no sleep night, rolling on the bed waiting for the alarm to ring. Atlast it was 5.30AM I was so relived and tried waking up the boys. Soon we refreshed ourselves had tea and started towards Sakleshpur. The credit goes to Yog for choosing the route. The road was winding, foggy and was very cold! We were tempted to race our bikes but the amazing scenery slowed us making us linger over the green landscape all around. No words can explain the beauty. No wonder the place is called Scotland of India.

We had our breakfast at Sakleshpur. Yog asked me if i remember the restaurant. Innocently i told it looks like the restaurant we had food on our Kudremukh trip. To my surprise it was the same place! Biru was again stuck to his mobile phone. Damn Alexander Graham Bell and his invention, i was thinking. Meanwhile we took some snaps, did some adjustments in our bikes, tightened the luggages. Our journey continued on the ghat roads admiring the dense forest on either side. We stopped on every good view points and took lot of snaps especially Addi who is intrested in marriage photos, wallpaper photos! We ended up taking for everyone in the group. Not to mention our lover boy wanted photo in every pose! Anyway afterall photos are the ones that keep the fun we had in memory.

This section of the ghat was full of lorry and trailer traffic. The heavy locomotives were screaming in their first gears to pull the load on the steep roads as our pulsars and a disky taking the road with ease. This was the place where I lost track of the rest. As we tried to squezee through the lorry traffic I went too far ahead and so I waited for the rest. After some time a lorry driver signaled me that three other bikes had passed already. So I teared through the traffic in fear that i may loose them. As i drove around 40 km there was no signs of the gang. There was no signal in any of our mobiles. After around 20 minutes the guys came to the checkpost where i was waiting praying to God that these guys should come there. Biru and Addi scolded me and I knew how much they might've worried about me.

Anyway that was the streach of the beautiful ghat section that nobody was able to enjoy. As we went towards Bisle Ghat we found a river and stopped to have a dip. The water was cold, shallow and was very refreshing after the bike riding. We had a good chat as we enjoyed the gentle massage the water stream gave us. As Addi and Yog's were taiking wallpaper photos Biru and me took our bikes into the water just for fun. It was great. The water current was pushing the bike as we crossed the river.

We reached Bisle around 3pm. We had a late lunch of bananas and tea. Then we climbed down the ghat road of Bisle. Soon we reached the second destination in the list BIDALLI. After travelling a distance of 5 kms to left of the main road we reached a small house. We hired a guide to take us to Bidalli falls. Once we climed the steepest road we drove so far we realized that its worth the strain we took! From that spot we could see the amazing water fall surrounded by other peaks on westerghats. We felt as if we had conquered the western ghats! Since the rain clouds threatened us we started from the place around 6pm.

My bike suddenly grapped the whole gangs attention. My bike drank almost 12 litres of fuel in 400 km and is now in reserve. It would go another 60 km with the 2 litres in the reserve. My bike was the worst fuel drinker in the group. Our next stop will be at madikeri. We started to climb towards madikeri. The winding road was a pleasure to drive a bike. You need to use your bodyweight to take tight turns. Biru who is a ghat road expert took his bike to 90 and 100km/hr! As we climbed the roads fog settled on the roads and the visiblity got reduced much to a 3 metre. This was the first time to drive this way for most of us. We reached madikeri at 8 pm. We drove around 250km of ghat road that day!

We had a heavy dinner and settled on our beds with plan to visit Talacauvery around 6:30AM. But all of us gotup by 7:30 and missed the amazing place. Abi fals is the next in the list and we didnt miss that. It was just 7km from madikeri. The falls was great. Bigger than Hanumanguni falls in kudremukh. We met the other gang of friends there. They were 10 of them speniding a amazing time in the falls. Addi and biru took a short treck into the forest nearby when I went to enjoy the cool water of the falls. We had a nice time admiring the beauty of nature.

Our next place was Nisagadama a Nature camp on the way to mysore. The place was around 50 km from madikeri. The ghat section was again a feast for a biker. Our lunch that day was in nisagadama. Addi and Yog had a short slumber on the grass as Biru again with his mobile phone and me thinking about all the things we did in that trip. We also had Elephant ride around the nature camp. Around 4:30PM we fasterned our luggages on the bike and headed towards Mysore. The road from here was so bad that we could only drive on 3o or 10 km/hr. We had a long break on a grass lawn on the way. Lying on the grass talking about each others experiences in the trip was fun.

Mysore road is one of the dream road for us. Once we reached mysore road Biru and me tempted to test our top speeds. Yog had to pick up his friend from mysore who will be comming with us till bangalore. The rest waited for Yog's arraival. Biru and me teamed up and overtook every other vehicle on road. We have to live up to the name of the club, right? ;) Yog clocked 115 km/hr and Addi pushed his disky to 105 km/hr. Biru and me did 119 Km/hr
We reached bangalore around 10.30pm. As usual we had loads of memories about the masti we had with the nature and not to mention a lot more head turns this time!

huez - the biker
(for photos check out the Photo Gallery)