Weekend Drive to Chikmagalur
It had been about three weeks since I drove my BMW out on a weekend drive. It rained very heavily in Bangalore last couple of weeks. We faced plenty of water logging and terrible road conditions due to heavy rain last two weeks. That made me reluctant to drive my BMW (however nice the BMW is to drive, it has one serious issue - it
hates water). Instead, I used my beater car (Maruti SX4) last two weekends. SX4 had to go through plenty of water logging. We actually had nightmarish drives on a couple of occasions when I had to drive out in the heavy rain due to some unavoidable reasons. This 320d would have never managed what SX4 could manage in these times. While I am extremely thankful to my SX4 for doing the dirty duty of driving through water, mud, slush, broken roads and all that kind of stuff, I kept on missing driving my BMW out on open highways.
Therefore, when it looked like the rain would stop this weekend and the weather radar looked a bit clearer (owners of BMW sedans would relate to this: you must keep checking weather radars and forecasts before you plan a drive
), I decided to drive out this weekend. My wife had been busy with some major conference till last weekend. This weekend, she was free and was in a relaxed mood as her conference was over. Thus, it was a perfect time for us to spend a weekend together in a drive to some nice place. The plan was just to be in some scenic place and relax, listening to music and reading books. And of course, I wanted to drive the car and take some car photos too.
With that motivation, we planned a drive to Chikmagalur. We booked a resort which apparently has great mountain views and balconies where we could sit and relax soaking in the mountain views (and this turned out to be true - the resort did offer fantastic views from our room and the balcony). And I planned a drive around that mountain too.
Route Map: This was the driving circuit I followed (in clockwise direction):
We drove from Bangalore to Chikmagalur via Hassan on Day 1. And then on Day 2 we returned via Tarikere and Hiriyur.
Day 1:
We started a bit late from our home (around 8:30AM), under heavy cloud cover. It looked like it would rain a lot. After having done so many rainy drives this whole extended monsoon season, I was keenly hoping for a sunny and dry drive. However, this was certainly not a day for that. It is almost end of November, but still the rainy season is continuing. And that day started just like another rainy day.
When we reached our first snacks/coffee break near Hassan, it was raining. The car looked like this, soaked in the rain:
However, luckily for us, the weather cleared after we started driving further. The rest of the day we did not get any noticeable rain except for an occasional shower. The skies were cloudy. But the air was dry and crisp. Ambient temperatures were very pleasant. We had the best of the weather and driving conditions through the rest of the day, and we loved every moment of it!
Soon after we crossed Belur, we saw one Yagachi Dam Park on the left. The map showed huge blue water body on my left as I was driving, and that made me look out on the left, and I noticed a proper parking spot and a gate for Yagachi Dam Park and Viewpoint. We parked our car there and took a stroll to the viewpoint.
A view at Yagachi Dam Park:
The park offered a small walk with good views all around. The water body is huge and there are some excellent water views as well. It is definitely a good place to spend some time walking around and enjoying the views.
I had a chosen a resort about 25km away from Chikmagalur city, on SH57 towards Tarikere. The reason for choosing this resort was the location. I love to drive on this SH57. It is a ghat road that offers excellent sections with smooth tarmac, lovely turns and corners to enjoy the handling of the car, and of course great scenic views all around. This road also offers great photography locations.
After we crossed Chikmagalur and started driving on this SH57, I could not resist getting down and spending some time taking car photos. While I was busy taking photos, my wife enjoyed stepping out and breathing the fresh clean air, and soaking in the serene ambiance there.
Beginning of my favorite section on SH57:
A couple of shots on a particularly nice corner:
My favorite section of the Chikmagalur driving circuit:
Visiting an Idyllic Coffee Shop: One of our favorite places in that area is "Coffeebarn Cafe". This is now renamed as Halli Berri Coffee and Cottages. This is just a couple of km away from our resort, and this was also one of the reasons for choosing this resort.
The Coffee Shop is on the side of this hilly road:
The Idyllic Coffee Shop nestled in the lush green setting:
Our table, hidden behind these flowers and trees:
After eating some delicious sandwiches, we ordered the main item - their famous coffee with absolutely freshly made fries:
And finally, a banana cake to wrap up our visit to this coffee shop:
By the time we finished our lunch and coffee there, dark clouds had gathered in the sky, and it was quite dark and gloomy in general. It looked like it will start raining heavily any moment. So we decided to check into our resort and take it easy for the rest of the day.
In the Resort:
Our resort was a place called Blossom Resort. I had chosen this primarily for the location - located on my favorite driving circuit, away from the city, close to our favorite coffee shop, and most importantly, offering great views of the hills. It is not a super fancy luxury resort. However, it is a good clean 4-star resort. It offers clean, spacious and airy rooms with wide open windows and balconies, a spacious and secure parking lot (one of my most important criteria when choosing a place to stay), and the location advantages I mentioned above.
We had booked a suite, which offers great mountain views.
Our room, which was spacious, clean, airy and bright:
View from our balcony shows the dark clouds that had engulfed the hills by this time (the hills are quite close to the resort, but they look far away in the pictures):
A closer look at the hills and the clouds on the top:
Restaurant with a view! The hills are constant backdrop no matter where you are in the resort, and this restaurant is no exception:
After a round of coffee and snacks at the restaurant, we came back to our room and enjoyed our main agenda: relaxing there soaking in the views. My wife took out a book and sat in the balcony reading the book. I put on my headphones and started listening to my favorite music, while enjoying the views and the changing cloud patterns:
A tree stump looked interesting on the cloudy backdrop:
I could watch and photograph these clouds on the hills for hours:
Zooming in on the distance, I could even spot a waterfall on the mountains, when the cloud cover lifted partially for some time:
Overall we had a great time relaxing there enjoying the views and the weather. We spent the rest of the day just chilling there and enjoying the views.
Day 2: Plan for this day was to drive across the same mountains (or hills, if you don't want to call them mountains) we were enjoying the views of on Day 1. This SH57, which goes from Chikmagalur to Tarikere, crosses these same mountains, and is quite a scenic route.
To our pleasant surprise, it was bright and sunny when we got up. It had been a while since I saw such beautiful sunny morning. It was a really nice experience:
When we got up and came to our balcony, we were greeted by such sunny views:
We took a stroll through the resort, enjoying the sunny views (and notice the blue sky; this was a rarity for us in recent times):
As we started our drive back (or
forward, since technically we continued further on the same loop as on Day 1), we were now on those same mountains. Again, I could not resist some taking a few car photos in that scenic drive.
Descending down the ghats on SH57:
Somewhere on the side of the road:
It was bright and sunny now, and both I and the car enjoyed the sunny weather (and of course such delicious corners of the road) after a long time:
A parting shot on SH57 before we reached Tarikere:
By the time we reached Tarikere, we had descended the mountains and now we were on flat tracks. The road from Tarikere to Hosadurga (this is SH24, by the way) is flat, but still quite scenic. It is a wide state highway with smooth and well-marked tarmac, some nice turns and corners once in a while, and with lush green trees and farms on both sides. Driving on this road was quite enjoyable too.
Very enjoyable SH24 with such lovely tarmac, trees, and corners:
My car enjoying the views of the upcoming corner too, and of course, the bright sunny conditions for a change:
Finally, a parting shot of my car on SH24:
After that, the return drive was quite straightforward. I know these roads very well since this is part of my usual driving circuit. Although it was a simple and known drive, it was not necessarily uneventful. After enjoying such lovely roads for two days, I had my fair share of bad roads in the final stretch of the drive. When I reached close to Hiriyur, the last section of the state highway was closed for some work, and the cops there diverted us onto some random village road. It was a challenge to maneuver the 320d on these narrow village roads full of potholes and mud. After a bit of this challenging detour, where I had to be very careful and slow, and constantly pray that the roads don't get any worse than what I could manage, I finally joined a bigger road that took me back to Hiriyur. At Hiriyur, we joined the main NH48, the six-lane National Highway.
NH48 is amazing to drive on from Hiriyur to Sira. In fact, this is one of the best sections of six-lane tarmac you can find anywhere in the country. However, from Sira to Tumkur is pretty bad again, thanks to the hundreds of sudden potholes in the middle of the fast road. These potholes are there since more than two years now, and it takes a very careful driving to avoid crashing in one of these potholes at typical highway speeds. It was (and has always been) a slow, annoying and painful section to drive on. Somehow this time this section felt worse than the usual, and there were many new potholes this time. Luckily, with lot of patience and careful driving, I managed to negotiate this section quite well.
And then the final twist in the tale was the weather. I enjoyed the sunny drive all day (without even a drop of rain) and was thanking my luck for this bright weather and the dry drive that I got after a lot of praying and hoping. However, my joy was short lived. Just as I reached Bangalore and started driving on the NICE road, the skies became ominously dark, and it indeed started pouring soon. It did pour a lot about 15 minutes before I reached home. I reached home just in time before the water logging on the road started. So again, I was lucky with my timing, but the heavy downpour and the dark grey clouds in the final moments of the drive did give me some anxious moments.
Overall, it was a memorable drive. The car did quite fine as always, and I enjoyed every moment with this car after spending two weeks with my other car.