Nagari bike trip – July 11, 12th 2009

Yet another sequel in CTC’s motorcycle diaries –

“This trek made me push my limits stretching my body and mind” – a usual dialogue from people after tough treks. This time, we heard the same, but unusually people did not utter it, our bikes did, after we completed the two-day 350 km bike trip to Nagari.

This time, it was planned as a picnic with minimal trekking, maximum biking, promising lake, valley views, good food and camp over a waterfall site.

July 11:

The day started well. At around 5.30 in the morning, the participants gathered near Nathan’s café in Koyembedu. Senthil had joined us from Bangalore. There were 10 bikes and a Scorpio. Peter stuffed the entire luggage into the Scorpio and decided to sweep the bikers. After setting everything up, the rally started at 6.15. Few bikers stopped to fill up the petrol in the nearby petrol station. We then proceeded towards Nagari – north of Chennai through NH5.

After an hour’s drive, Peter called us and said he was stuck in Chennai since his bullet had some problems and had to send it back through the biker who was driving it. Peter stuffed Balaji into the cloakroom of Scorpio and started then. The poor thing was traveling cuddling the bags and chunks of packed food for all that he was securing the broken bullet’s back seat for half-an-hour in Koyembedu.

Nearly three hours of drive with a couple of pit stops, we made it to Puttur where Peter and co in Scorpio had joined us for the breakfast. People were seen (me inclusive) busy grabbing Dosas, Idlis, Pooris, Andhra style sambhar – We were thinking that it would be the best food until Sunday evening without knowing that something special was awaiting that night. The drive to Puttur was scenic and the crew enjoyed the countryside morning. The crowd was a mix of people ranging from newbies to big time daredevils. Breakfast at Puttur marked the end of the smooth highway cruising. We then took the remote scenic path to Nagari. It just looked like a half-built road, but it was nice and we, the drivers, did not have even a bit of problem driving on that. I was thinking about my off-roading skills and was quite sure-footed that this will be a ‘knife in the butter’ journey. I was wrong, which I learnt shortly. We were driving towards the Nagari Lake which is closed at all its sides except one. When we got there, there were a couple of surprises in queue. One being a pleasant surprise - the breath-taking lake view offered by Nagari. Nagari Lake is surrounded by mountains (probably the Nagari range) from all the sides. Clear blue sky and cool breeze awaited us.

Peter had brought four lorry tubes to help the non-swimmers have some water fun. The next surprise was that the Scorpio had conked. Some coil inside rewound because of which the engine got overheated and brakes ceased working. Phew, did it stop us having fun in the lake and further? No, Peter did not even take a minute for deciding what comes next. We decided to leave the Scorpio in the lake banks and go on further. The lake was mystically amazing. Not so deep and we spent a good time in splashing water, swimming, water volley, etc., After one and a half hours, we started again, this time into the secret valley, deep into the forests through a jeep track.

The bikers accommodated all the people and few bikes had to carry three people. The jeep track worsened yard by yard and the bikers wished at least they had 2X2 drives. We saw a Chennai registered Ford Endeavor mid way going towards Nagari Lake; we cheered them up and left. We took a break in the shady jungle, covered with lots of Mango trees. We opened up the Chappathi rolls with jam squeezes, which vanished in no time. This time, I could hear some drivers saying “Trekking would have been easy” ;) without knowing the biggest thing is yet to come.

Jeep trail, for those who haven’t quite off-roaded, is not a regular road or something, but a path where 4X4 vehicles can go on without a hitch.

There came a steep climb up and the path was made fully of broken rocks. We were wondering the humankind that created the route. We had already crossed several of same type passes, but this was unexpectedly long and steep. The pillion-ers started hiking up when we the bikers were trying hard to get the bikes up. It took over half an hour for all of the bikers to cross that and from there on, it was like sand drag racing. We finally reached a point where we thought we can’t take the bikes further on. There was yet another steep path made of broken rocks. Daring (ford)Bala tried taking his Bullet up, but eventually gave up after a few meters. We all parked the bikes there and started trekking towards our camping site. It was hot, bikers were tired, but soon we reached our planned camping site – the Sadhasiva Kona falls. It was a Siva temple with several sub-temples around. There was a 30 feet waterfall upstream of which looked like deep jungles. A quick dip in the pristine cool fall made our day. There were many monkeys trying to grab our eatables and few people were safeguarding the stuff.

There was an optional trek towards the top of the cliff to see the sunset and surrounding valleys.

Few people opted out and stayed back in water and we did go to the top climbing up the stream with torches anticipating darkness on return. The one hour trek was rewarding when we saw an amazing valley view and sunset at the top.

The fresh gust whiffing through the ears whilst we were enjoying the sunset is unforgettable until this moment. We took pictures and got back at around 7.30 in the evening to the camp. We then collected firewood and started making the dinner. Few folks were cutting vegetables and others were relaxing when the chief cook Gopal with his crew was busy cooking rice. Doug and I saw a massive spider web in the upstream when we were trying to grab some dry firewood. Probably it is the biggest that I have ever seen all through my life. Gopal and co made a fantabulous dinner – Rice with mixed vegetable curry. How many times we get a chance to relish good food in an exotic location? It is like a dream when I think about it now; after all it is just three hours from Chennai. A peaceful sleep that night.

July 12:

Lovely morning, when we all woke up, we saw a few local people jumping into the fall and the pond ahead of us. We waited, made sandwiches for breakfast, made black tea (few of us ate the milk powder without being able to keep up the urge and few folks were trying hard to protect it from us ;)). By the time we did our breakfast, the localites were gone, and Peter was still sleeping amidst the cacophony. We were in a diving spree that day. For about three hours, we were having non-stop fun in the water, diving, jumping, and somersaulting, so on.

Few folks have learnt the culinary art well, it looked like. Again, we had super good food – Vegetable mixed rice and noodles. We shared our food with the temple monastic who was generous enough to give us some oil and stuff. Not to miss that we were safeguarded by a couple of dogs from monkey and they got their share as well.

We started getting down at 2:00 PM and reached the bike parked place. There was a bad news waiting for us – (Ford)Bala’s bullet had a flat tyre. He did not seem to mind about that and started driving it back in the bad jeep trail. When we got down to the lunch spot, we did not find Bala after that. We managed to drive with 3 people each and got back to the Nagari Lake in the evening.

Bala left his bike midway in the jungle, locked it and trekked down to the lake since the bike went to a horrid shape. We had photo session in the lake bank. We could also see completely paired friends – Nandee and Kalpu. Nandee was daringly driving a Pulsar with two others while Kalpana was complaining about bikers driving more than 40 kmph in highways.

Now we had a broken bullet midway in the forest and a Scorpio that needed something to be fixed in the shores of the lake. Peter and Bala called up the Mahindra people in Chennai and they agreed to send a service professional to Tirupathi. Peter managed to drive the car slowly up to the nearest village and towed it to Tirupathi. The bikers split into two groups of six and three each in Puttur and Senthil was dropped at Renigunda. I along with eleven others had our dinner at Sri Vari restaurant (the Nagala-fame one) and proceeded towards Chennai. We reached Chennai at around 11 in the evening and met the other bikers in Koyembedu and bid a bye. Peter had fixed the Scorpio and went to Chennai early in the morning.

On a whole, it was an exhilarating weekend with lots of biking, swimming and good food in an exotic location. Thanks to Peter for organizing the trip and to everyone who was a part of the trip making a synchronal fun crowd.

Written by: Karthick Sundararajan

Organized by: Peter

Participants: 12 bad biker boys, 9 daring pillion girls, 2 bullets, 7 plastic bikes, 1 max capitalized Scorpio

Image Galleries:
Brijesh
Karthick Sundararajan
Karthik yadav
Mani
Vipin