Aavalabetta and Gudibande trek!
Date: 23rd July 2016
Team: Dikshit, Mahesh, Naveen, Rajesh, Suresh and Shashi
Difficulty level: Easy
Route we took:
Our trek began by passing through the temple arch at around 11 AM. Aavalabetta is a mere 2 KM away from the arch.
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| Arch |
There is a well laid cement road all the way to the top. There were a lot of people heading towards the peak by bikes and cars. Also, there is a separate pathway on the left of the road laden with vegetation leading to the temple at the peak. We obviously chose that path, one reason being to enjoy the actual trek through greenery and the other to avoid the traffic on the main road.
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| Road leading to temple |
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| Parallel pathway leading to temple |
This path did offer us to witness many interesting creatures.
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| Millipede |
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| Red Ant |
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| Jewel Bug |
The landscape is humongous and spread as far as the eyes can see!
It took us about 45 mins to trek to the top. We offered prayers in the temple before heading towards the much sought after spot, the Avalabetta hilltop!
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| Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple |
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| Scary tip! |
We had not expected this huge a crowd and were a little disappointed that we couldn't spend some peaceful time at the peak. We stood in the queue for our turn to reach the scary tip and of course, got it clicked for the obvious reason, DP :P There is a small pond right near the tip which adds beauty to this place.
After spending enough time, we started heading back towards the base at around 1 PM. We again took the parallel pathway and had our lunch midway.
We couldn't find an auto to reach back to Mandikal or Perasandra. We walked for about 3 KMs on the road, hoping to find an auto midway. Since we had also planned to visit Gudibande fort which is around 20 KM away, finding an auto was the need of the hour to make that plan happen. Fortunately, we found an auto and reached Gudibande Fort by around 3 PM.
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| On the way to Gudibande |
The fort looked humongous as we approached its base. We were bound to complete exploring this fort in about 3 hours as the last bus to the Chickballapur was at 6PM.
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| Gudibande Fort |
We were surprised to see that it is well maintained and we could hardly see people around unlike Aavalabetta.
The steps leading to the top of the fort are clean and there are cave like entrances at a couple of places. It took us 30 mins to reach the top after a little tiring ascent.
We came up with our own theories on how the fort would have been used to fight the battle. It was fun!! It took us back to few centuries while exploring stone mantapas, secret firing stations, escape routes for soldiers, etc.
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| The Mighty Fort! |
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| Temple at the top of the fort |
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| Awesome view from the top |
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| Resting at the top |
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| Tiny water body near the top |
We started descending down by around 5 and reached Gudibande bus stand well before 6. We didn't get a bus and ended up catching an auto to reach Perasandra. At Perasandra, we waited for about 15 mins for the bus. It was around 7 when we started heading back towards Bengaluru. It rained heavily that day in Bengaluru and needless to say, Bengaluru traffic was chaotic and took an additional hour to reach Majestic bus stand.
Well, it was quite an eventful day, covering two interesting places one after the other.
As always, awaiting the next trek...
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