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16th September 2019, 10:01
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| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Tamilnadu
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| Dashcam log: Vellore to Yelagiri Note: This travelogue is a drive-centered, dash-cam footage filled write up. I don't have a review of Yelagiri or places I stayed in this write up. The drive to and from Yelagiri is centered around the hairpin bends and their names with altitudes mentioned. (skip the highway footage in the first couple of paragraphs if you want to go to the hills section rightaway!) To me, work is passion, family is life, driving is a getaway and Church (God) is a binding glue that holds my life together. I was quite disappointed when I realised I would have to skip our Church retreat on Yelagiri Hills on the weekend of August 31 as I was working that weekend - it looked like work would win that weekend and family, driving & Church would have to miss the weekend! After an exhausting couple of weeks at the ICU, I realised why I loved my workplace - My colleague offered to work the weekend instead of me and suddenly my son was jumping around the house with glee as he could spend the weekend with his friends at the Shalom Foundation Center in Yelagiri Hills. As I was on call on Friday night, I got into my car at midnight after a late night round at the ICU and realised the front tire was low on air. I came back home and knew I had a puncture - I was too tired to change it though. Saturday morning saw me send a message to my apartment complex whatsapp group and suddenly I had contact details of ten people who would fix the puncture. As I continued rounds on saturday morning, a few phonecalls were made and saw the puncture fixed - a screw had done the damage. 3 PM and we were ready to go! An overnight stay with 2 children meant cricket kit, guitar and tripod into the boot and the xcent swallowed it all with plenty to spare. My daughters baby car seat and sons booster were all set as usual and we were off. The section of the highway between Vellore and the Yelagiri turnoff is bliss. Our first stretch had one close call as a large tire debris caused a truck to swerve a little. I was too far off to really feel bothered, but it did reiterate the fact that Indian highways are filled with unseen, unexpected dangers! The rest of the highway drive was a breeze and the recent rains had added a splash of green to the sides and the majestic hills. This particular stretch is a favorite of ours even though some sections are a little rough and have only 2 lanes on each side. There's also a railway track that runs with us and if we're lucky we get to race with a train - something that keeps the kids entertained! The only annoying stretch here is the road through Ambur which usually has traffic lights and some traffic. A cyclist always has right of way even if our signal turns green. A yawn, a smile and a friendly wave later we were back on the highway. The turn off to Yelagiri makes you enter a service lane and then curve a bit before you hit the lousy road to Yelagiri foothills. The road is pot-holed and patched. Towards the end of the video you can even see the road being fixed very haphazardly and the freshly filled potholes are still bad! There goes my tax money!! It seems worth it as the first direct view of the hills look lush and majestic. The climb up yelagiri is a series of hairpin bends (14 in all) with narrow winding roads. There are plenty of buses, 2 wheelers and autos in addition to the usual 4-wheelers. The climb is short and the scenes are good. I have dash-cam footage of a lot of the hairpin bends, but not all. The hairpin bends are named. So here we go curving up and down Yelagiri! I am including both uphill and downhill driving dash-cam footage along with the hairpin bends. 1. Pavender - 428 mtrs 2. Barathiyar - 485 mtrs The climb didnt start well as I had to reverse on the first hairpin bend to let a bus past. I ended up scraping a culvert while doing this! Well, I wasn't going to let that get in my way though. 3. Thiruvalluvar - 524 mtrs Still close to the ground, theres a small rock formation here and otherwise very unremarkable. On the downhill drive video, You can see the sheer number of bikers without helmet already! 4. Illango - 574 mtrs There's now enough elevation get more expansive views. Nobody stops on this bend though thankfully! 5. Kambar - 624 mtrs By now people halt to look at the views - mainly bikers. Theres a small temple too at this bend. On the uphill video (5 and 6 combined), don't miss the guy having a nap on the (l)edge! 6.Kabilar - 664 mtrs On the uphill drive I spotted the bus very early and could halt and let it pass. Owing to the narrow roads, buses use the entire hairpin bend when turning and some of them even need to reverse to turn. If you're hiring a bus, make sure you get an experienced driver and a smaller bus. 7. Avvaiyar - 683 mtrs As the views get better, there are more people stopping for photos. The selfie cams are out. There even appears to be a natural sitout at the bend. I am a conservative driver, but I felt the car in front of me on the downhill drive was being over-cautious. Well, it gave me more time to enjoy the scenery - so no hard feelings! Finally caught an autorickshaw going up the hill too!! 8. Paari - 724 mtrs High guardrails block the view and not many stop here. This seems fairly wide. 9. Kaari - 760 mtrs By now the elevation is good enough for some great views and cars stop to have a look. The bend seem to have a small walking path starting off at the corner. I wonder what it leads to.... On the downhill drive you can see the distant rainfall in the mountains faraway! 10.Orri - 888 mtrs As we get closer to Yelagiri, the distance between bends gets smaller. Also the rocks and walls have advertisements painted on them. As you negotiate up hairpin bend 10, there is a view point that comes immediately. This causes a little traffic muddle! I wish I could have stopped for a photo op! 11.Aaaye - 907 mtrs: Bends 10 to 12 are quite close to each other. The video while driving downhill captures all 3 of them. The bends are quite crowded with folks stopping for viewing the lovely plains below and hills afar. You will see quite a few roadside romeos cooing and babbling and also plenty of bravehearts trying to create a flutter by standing on the steep edge. Alls well that ends well. 12. Adhiyaman - 913 mtrs Probably the most crowded bend with cars parked and several people standing and looking out. We loved the view during the drive of the distant rainfall from the clouds. 13. Nalli - 1002 mtrs I missed saving the clips on this lovely hairpin bend both ways. By now you are 1 km above sea level. The greenery changes as you get higher and the trees start getting denser on some of these section. There is a cool nip in the air if you're driving with windows down. Don't expect it to be cold though. Yelagiri is not high enough for that! 14. Baegan - 1017 mtrs By the time you reach Baegan, there are trees on either side and you get limited views of the horizon. We had to negotiate a broken down truck after the bend - thankfully the bus beyond that waited patiently as a few of use went past. No dramas. While going downhill, you reach Baegen quite quickly after some gentle curves. So thats the hill driving bits. As I was attending a Church retreat, there's nothing much I can write about Yelagiri and places to visit. We left on Sunday after tea and I managed to take a wrong turn and explore some interior bits of Yelagiri before I hit the down hill road. After reaching the foothills, we again had to negotiate the pot-holed stretch through some town (could do a moonwalk video there!) before we reached the junction to enter the highway. Since I had to turn towards Chennai, I followed the signs that pointed towards Vaniyambadi, went under the highway in the underpass and then take the sudden right to enter the highway (almost missed it!). The return ride was fun as we drove with another family and had a great stopover at a CCD. It was not incident free. We witnessed this hurried bit of driving with a near miss as some highway riders tried to overtake themselves and multiple vehicles. With lane discipline lacking, switching lanes after an overtake needs to be done carefully! We once again had to rumble through Ambur and a slight jam. The exit from Ambur is good as you get lovely views of some hills on the right and road is good as you leave the Biriyani restaurants behind! We also let a VIP 'convoy' pass us - not as impressive as we thought it would be as there wee only 2 vehicles and they had subtle lights. We were a little surprised that they were in the CCD outlet we decided to visit, but thankfully they were leaving when we entered! A final note on the tollbooth experience. We had to cross the Pallikonda toll booth and both ways was not the best of experiences, but there were no dramas. On the way to yelagiri, there was a long queue that moved without much ado. The cash queues seem to move faster though (or was it an illusion!) On the return drive, there was a single vehicle having a horrendous time at the toll booth dedicated fastag lane. I had to switch to the next ETC lane and made a smooth exit! Overall Yelagiri is a nice place for a quick getway, especially for the non-strenuous driving. I'll leave you with a compilation dash-cam footage with the climb videos Dash-cam: Viofo A119 V2 with CPL filter. Strontium Mitro microSD card. Last edited by BenjiRoss : 17th September 2019 at 10:37. |
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| The following 4 BHPians Thank BenjiRoss for this useful post: | AlphaKilo, GTO, mallumowgli, srvm |
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17th September 2019, 11:36
| #2 |
| Team-BHP Support   | Re: Dashcam log: Vellore to Yelagiri Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Travelogues Section. Thanks for sharing! |
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