A weekend retreat close to nature just 4:30 hrs of drive away from the city hustle was the beautiful Chikamagalur. The plan was sudden and we bag packed on a Friday evening to leave around 11 pm and take a 2 days getaway. We returned by Sunday evening.
My Travelogue will be small this time since I do not want to get away from describing the beautiful estate.
Hence, the road map is here. We took the NICE and Neelamangala Toll road to join NH48. The road joined to the Mangalore highway and connected to Hassan into Chikamagalur.
We reached the Homestay by 3AM.
The estate was as big as a beautifully painted picture. The early morning mist was running through our spines when the caretaker welcomed us with hot filter coffee. We were shown our way to the Tree house and wow….there were branches transformed into racks.
Tired, as we were, we called it a day and retired.
8:30am and I woke up with the chirping of the birds and sound of life walking through the twigs, outside. I heard a strange bird. I asked the owner later to find out it was a peacock.
The tree house was cold as the wind kept seeping in through the logs. I opened the door and I screamed with awe “Goodness Gracious Me”…just loud enough to wake up the other and grab attention of the caretaker, He asked, “Madam, Coffee??” And I enjoyed my coffee and the beautiful mountain range right in front of me.
A five spread South Indian breakfast was followed by coffee again. There was a trek tour post breakfast through the estate of Coffee, Sandalwood and Pepper. The estate owner had stories of competitions, challenges and good and bad time. Done with the trek, we were back basking in the sun. I got a good 2 hours of reading a book. While I kept myself drowned in “The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone” by Shashi Tharoor, the others got good time to photograph, wander around and play with the estate puppy.
Then came a wonderfully spread Malnad lunch with 8-9 courses of delicious food, followed by which we planned to drive up to the Mullayangiri Range, the highest peak in Karnataka. The peak is 1930mts high. They are also called Chandradrona Parvatha Shreni or ChandradronaMountain range as they form the shape of a crescent moon. The up road is a single lane beautiful journey. While driving through one has to keep an eye on the left for a sudden in-route to the peak. Once missed it become difficult get a place wide enough to take a reverse and get back. We reached the last spot for vehicles around 4:30PM. The Sun was still bright and we could see a long trail of steps going up to the peak where the shrine sits. We climbed 468 steps trailing round to the peak. It is scary when we look down but once we were up, it was majestic. The Sunset was amazing and while it was still light, we saw the tiny cars leaving from the parking area taking slow move down the circling range. The mist started catching up and we made a move.
The drive down the hills and the mist following us left us numb. Once back to the estate, we were handed our favorite coffee cups while campfire was being lit up and music being played. We enjoyed the evening talking and dancing and drinking. Dinner was spread out late during the night and finally we retired post dinner with some home made wine.
Next day early morning was the day of return. So we had a lazy morning, looking around the estate and talking to the owner. The estate has an end to end environment friendly setup. Cooking is through woods, water heating and lighting is through installed solar, the bio waste is used for gas and the vegetables, coffee, milk and cereals come from the estate farming. What a wonderful breath of freshness and 2 days closest to nature we had spent.
As we left to be back to our concrete days of connectivity and internet, I wished I could stay in the estate forever.
