It has been a while that the forest has beckoned us and showered us with its beauty. From the starting of March, the sparsely allocated Indian Holiday Calendar for 2015 has been tempting us to drive out and take a break.
This was a quick plan, spoke to the standard group and added a couple of new members who are equally eager to head out. Everyone is looking for peace and disconnect from the mobile network. We settled for Honey Valley Estates. A place located about 4520 Ft. above sea level from the beautiful and picturesque Madikeri.
As always, we left early in the morning of 21st March 2015 and met at the Tumkur Road exit of Yashwantpur Railway Station. A holiday and Ugadi festival marked as New Year to natives of Karnataka, the traffic was extremely heavy. Everyone was traveling away from the madness of Bangalore to their respective homes. We slowly made our way out through the Nelmangala exit and decided to change our route. Since Mysore Road will be definitely high on traffic and humps to add on to, we decided to take the longer Hassan Way.
It was already 8 AM when we got a breather and empty road. We stopped at a Kamath Upachar for Breakfast. We took a good half an hour break with steaming idli, dosa and great coffee. We picked up bottle water and started again. From Tumkur, we followed the road to Kunigal. A stretch of 20kms is under construction, hence a lot of loose gravels and dusts around. Post Kunigal, the road again gets better till Chanarayapatna. Here, we cross the town and open up into the highway again. I must say that the availability of food is very less in this route. It could be because the Highway is comparatively new or less traffic, we surprisingly found the pockets of CCD or Kamat Upachar for refreshment. From Chanrayapatna, we took a right and kept going straight. We reached Shanivarsante and then into Kushalnagar. Kushalnagar was a short halt for refreshment and then at around 12:30PM we entered Madikeri.
Medikeri is the food paradise every time we travel that route. We drove straight into East End Hotel and parked there. East End Hotel has been serving travelers for years now. Its delicacy being Keema Dosa and meat balls, both are served in the evening. For lunch we had mutton pulao, chicken curry, rice and dal fry. The food was as usual amazingly delicious. They served freshly cooked, hot and tasty with the typical Coorg specialty to taste.
Post lunch, we left towards Coorg. We took the left from the Madikeri where the road goes down towards Virajpet. Honey Valley is 23kms from Virajpet. We travelled into the Madikeri-Murnud road for about 4 kms till Kadanur. At the arriving junction there is a single way bridge over a river or a stream, we took a left after the bridge and continued to travel till Kabbinakkad. At Kabbinakkad junction in the right, we saw a board that says Tamaara Coorg 16kms. This has been our landmark. We followed the board till we reached 4kms and stopped in front of a tea stall call call friends.
The jeep fromn Honey Valley was already there to pick us up. We followed the jeep and started climbing. On the first landing, we parked our car and got into the open Mahindra Monster. Then started the final part of our travel.
The road was as narrow as 4feet wide and steep enough to challenge a 4 WD car. It was as if the mountain range has been razor-ed to create a road. One side was thick forest and the other was steep valley dark into nothingness. Scary yet fun.
It was a 1.5kms drive that tool us 35-40mins up. Finally we reached The Honey Valley. This is a huge estate flanked by greenery and small cottages here and there. At the entrance, there is the dining and kitchen, then about 30 steps down is one of the guest accommodation followed by another further 30 odd steps down. That is where we were put overlooking the valley. Quiet, serene and green fulfilling every moment with the chirping of the birds with known and unknown calls.
We sat around, enjoyed the nature for sometimes when the care taker came to take the order for the dinner. Dinner had the standard vegetarian buffet of rice, roti, dal, 2 currys and curd. To add to that, there were chicken and Pork as an option. Dinner was strictly from 8:00PM to 9:30 PM. For snacks we ordered a few dishes however, the options offered were french fries and onion rings and timings were between 5PM and 6:30PM. Since it was already 3PM by the time we reached the place, we planned to take an hours rest before we hit out for some bird watching. At 4PM, we went around the estate, spotted some birds to photograph and came back by 5:30PM. At the rim of sunset, we sat on the benches of onlooking the valley and had our evening coffee and the snacks.
This completely felt like bliss after a longtime. We inquired about the bon fire and within no time everything was set up and were offered a time limit of 7PM to 9PM. The bonfire was fun..... we sat around and spoke on politics, fun things, little things in life that could have been or should have been and our personal agendas on different topics. We hung around till almost 10PM when we were called to finish the dinner. Dinner was good, typical South Indian homemade everyday food. The Pepper Pork and the Chicken curry was very well cooked. We enjoyed our dinner and went back to the still burning fire. After sitting for an hour, we retired to sleep around 11PM.
Though the feeling of honey valley puts us more back into the hostel days where everything is too tired and restricted to have a relaxed vacation, the silence and the greenery definitely puts one at peace.
Next morning, we were up by 6AM for bird watching however, we found more colorful and big butterflies than birds around. We went back to the snack benches by the valley for the morning tea and spend sometime gazing into the greenery. Post breakfast, we started walking and looking around the estate.It was a beautiful walk through the plantation and we were back only by 12 PM. We freshened up, packed and left from there by 1PM and with a hault in Kushalnagar for lunch and Fishland for dinner, we hit back to Bangalore by 1AM.
Though a short and tiring one, this was a fun trip with a small glimpse of hostel days.
The jeep fromn Honey Valley was already there to pick us up. We followed the jeep and started climbing. On the first landing, we parked our car and got into the open Mahindra Monster. Then started the final part of our travel.
The road was as narrow as 4feet wide and steep enough to challenge a 4 WD car. It was as if the mountain range has been razor-ed to create a road. One side was thick forest and the other was steep valley dark into nothingness. Scary yet fun.
It was a 1.5kms drive that tool us 35-40mins up. Finally we reached The Honey Valley. This is a huge estate flanked by greenery and small cottages here and there. At the entrance, there is the dining and kitchen, then about 30 steps down is one of the guest accommodation followed by another further 30 odd steps down. That is where we were put overlooking the valley. Quiet, serene and green fulfilling every moment with the chirping of the birds with known and unknown calls.
We sat around, enjoyed the nature for sometimes when the care taker came to take the order for the dinner. Dinner had the standard vegetarian buffet of rice, roti, dal, 2 currys and curd. To add to that, there were chicken and Pork as an option. Dinner was strictly from 8:00PM to 9:30 PM. For snacks we ordered a few dishes however, the options offered were french fries and onion rings and timings were between 5PM and 6:30PM. Since it was already 3PM by the time we reached the place, we planned to take an hours rest before we hit out for some bird watching. At 4PM, we went around the estate, spotted some birds to photograph and came back by 5:30PM. At the rim of sunset, we sat on the benches of onlooking the valley and had our evening coffee and the snacks.
This completely felt like bliss after a longtime. We inquired about the bon fire and within no time everything was set up and were offered a time limit of 7PM to 9PM. The bonfire was fun..... we sat around and spoke on politics, fun things, little things in life that could have been or should have been and our personal agendas on different topics. We hung around till almost 10PM when we were called to finish the dinner. Dinner was good, typical South Indian homemade everyday food. The Pepper Pork and the Chicken curry was very well cooked. We enjoyed our dinner and went back to the still burning fire. After sitting for an hour, we retired to sleep around 11PM.
Though the feeling of honey valley puts us more back into the hostel days where everything is too tired and restricted to have a relaxed vacation, the silence and the greenery definitely puts one at peace.
Next morning, we were up by 6AM for bird watching however, we found more colorful and big butterflies than birds around. We went back to the snack benches by the valley for the morning tea and spend sometime gazing into the greenery. Post breakfast, we started walking and looking around the estate.It was a beautiful walk through the plantation and we were back only by 12 PM. We freshened up, packed and left from there by 1PM and with a hault in Kushalnagar for lunch and Fishland for dinner, we hit back to Bangalore by 1AM.
Though a short and tiring one, this was a fun trip with a small glimpse of hostel days.
