Writing travel blogs is a passion for me, but when you have lot many stories to tell, it becomes a pretty hard job. Though, I have endless stuffs to narrate for this trip, I will meticulously keep only those threads without which this trip was incomplete.
Before posting pics and videos, how about knowing Kolli Hills:
15 Families, 15 EcoSports, 1 destination and 70 hairpin bends. You read that right! 70 hairpin bends are what you need to negotiate through to reach Kolli Hills - which grimly translates into 'Mountains of Death.' Kolli Hills or Kolli Malai is a small mountain range located in central Tamil Nadu and spreaded over the Namakkal district of India. The mountains rise to 1300m in height and cover an area of approximately 280 km. They are part of the Eastern Ghats, which is a mountain range that runs mostly parallel to the east coast of South India. The mountain is a site of pilgrimage, because of Arapaleeswarar temple, but the area is also popular with Motor Cycle/Car enthusiasts because of the high altitude motor-able terrain with 70 hairpin bends.
Inception of Idea:
It all began from my last
travel blog when members of EcoSquads Facebook Group had a get together at Dandiganahalli Dam on Sun, 17th Mar 2019 and the same was liked and appreciated by Ford India. They also mentioned that they would like to get associated with us for future event.
Meanwhile, we members of EcoSquads FB Group, had another
Breakfast meetup at Konark Restaurant, Kanteerava Stadium, Bangalore on Sun, 23rd Jun 2019. We all discussed a high level plan to have one night family outing with Ford India support.
Planning for perfection:
Immediately, after our meet up, we proposed our idea of having a family trip in July/August, 2019 to Ford India. We got an overwhelming response from them which boosted our energy to leave no stone unturned to make the trip a remarkable one. The first iceberg for us was to finalize a location. After lot of helter and skelter, we choosed
Sakleshpur. We started exploring hotels/resorts but all in vain as we couldn’t get any good one within budget for accommodation of good number of families. Again the search started for the location and we found ‘Kolli Hills’ an undiscovered gem. 70 Hairpin bends, not so commercialize place, apt distance from Bangalore were few reasons which provoked us to finalize Kolli Hills as our next get together destination. We got lot of pointers from the
event which Team BHP had at the same place. It turned out to be icing on the cake as we got clue for hotel, a rough itinerary etc from blog of Team BHP event.
As an immediate step, we proposed Kolli Hills as our next get together destination to Ford India. We were extremely happy, when they agreed for it.
For further planning, we called hotels for reservation. After a good negotiation, we finalized
Silverline Retreat Hotel and we did an initial reservation for 15 rooms. The next task to be encountered was to choose venues for breakfast and evening tea/snack during to and fro from Bangalore. The challenge was to choose a place which had an ample parking space for 15 cars and which also comes within our pocket. After spending almost 2-3 days we were able to finalize these place.
Murugan Idli Shop was finalized for breakfast during upward journey and
A2B Thoppur for evening tea/snack, during downward journey.
The next and the most crucial step was to choose participants. We were pretty sure that with our last trips as great success we should not face much challenge here and we were not wrong. To go-live with the announcement about our trip on the social media, we got superb invite creative and post content from Ford India. We got an irresistible response after posting the same on social handles. All in all, 15 EcoSports were set for our trip on 10th & 11th Aug, 2019. Ford India also appointed Crew to accompany us to make content as well as curate a trail driving experience enroute to Kolli Hills.
Preparation was in full swing. Convoy position for each car was decided. We closed on mosaic pattern and followed color scheme as
WRS WRB WCS WRB WRS (W=White, R=Red, S=Silver, B=Blue, C=Canyon Ridge). All the stickers (Convoy#, EcoSquads Logo, Discover More) were printed/kept ready to be pasted on each participating car.
A high level itinerary was discussed and finalized.
As a precautionary measure, we also got consent on below MoU by each participating Car.
As our trip dates were approaching, our tensions and worries were at peak as entire South India was facing the wrath of floods, landslides and rains. We did a very detailed research for our entire route, called hotel, checked weather forecast to ensure that there are no life threats. Ford also did a recce of the entire route, by its appointed Crew, in a day advance to ensure that everything is fine. Crew shared the below video from resort, just to give an idea of weather at Kolli Hills.
Thanks to Crew, who informed us not to follow direct road to reach to resort, after finishing ghat section, which is shown in G Map as the same had landslides which they experienced during recce. Below was the scene at direct route to resort on recce day.
All the results gave us relief as everything was looking under control at Kolli Hills. Kolli Hills turns out to be blessing in disguise with floods in every other part of South India. Route as per Google Map was finalized with few changes. It was decided not to enter into Salem city, rather to avoid the city by taking bypass.