Chilume & Devarayandurga

On 22nd July, we had a great ride to Chilume and Devarayanadurga; 4 bikes and 8 people. Covered a total of 220 kms up and down from Diary circle.Myself, Ram and my cousin started at 9 AM from Diary cirle. Next stop was at Krishna Vaibhav, Marathahalli where Sabdu, Jose and his room mate, KP and Doniv joined. We had a 'short' breakfast with Denny there which took just one hour.
The routes had been planned on previous day; take outer ring road via KR Puram, Hebbal and after that join NH4 to Tumkur. As per our detailed analysis, after around 60 kms through NH4, we have to take diversion. We had planned to visit 3 places: Sivaganga, Devarayanadurga and Chilume. Sivaganga will be the first place on the way followed by Devarayanadurga and Chilume.
After a brief planning we decided to hit the most distant place first so that other places can be visited on the way back depending on the time left.
Keeping Chilume as the target, 4 bikes started off. The bikes were going in a synchronized manner. After around 20-25 kms all the bikes stopped and made sure that everything is going fine.
These breaks were mainly for KP's and Jose's cameras to do some serious work. The route was very good and climate was even better. On the journey we stopped at many places and took lots of snaps.
After diversion from NH4, we entered remote villages with roads winding around lush green hills. But the destination seemed drifting away, one person said only 8kms to Chilume, we traveled more than that and still we did not find any such place. It did not bother us since the route was really wonderful and we were continously stopping our bikes to enjoy the scenary.
After some distance, the roads were descending the hills; we just switched off the engines and started gliding in neutral. Jose was doing R&D by taking snaps sitting in moving bike.
Finally Chilume came; there is a park with deers inside and monkeys outside. These monkeys were expertedly dismantlying the bikes already parked there. We had to find out a safe place to park our bikes. This place had an old temple made of huge stone on top of a big granite rock. After taking some rest and more photos, we started to Devarayanadurga.
The route is ascending and has lot of semi-hairpin curves. After all the ascent, we reached a wonderful point, from where we could view the entire topology. The wind was so strong that Sabdu had to strongly hold on to his jacket; otherwise he would have flown away.
Next stop was at the road which passed through edges of the hill. We could see deep 'suicide points' on one side of the road. The view from here was absolutely wonderful.
Next we went to the Devarayanadurga temple, which is a marvel by itself. There is a pond enclosed by big granite boulders. On top of one of the boulders was a small granite construction - gopuram kind of thing. That was the highest point. All of us felt stong desire to conquer that point. By this time it was already evening 6 and most of us were exhausted. But the strong urge to conquer the highest point kept us going. Finally when we conquered, it was literally on top of the world. I almost fell from the top due to heavy winds, which I did not expect as long as we reached there.
After making sure that the magic moments are captured as canon moments, we started descent. Outside temple, we had tea, biscuts etc to replenish us for the return. By this time we could understand that Shivaganga visit was not feasible, since it was already getting dark.
On the return jounery, there was very less stops, the major stop being at a Dhaba on the way. We had wonderful food to sum up the entire journey. After food and some demo moments (for photography), we continued the journey. Reached back diary circle around 10 PM. Really enjoyed every moment of the journey.
Slept till noon on nextday, which was a sunday.
More fotos to be uploaded soon!