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Drive to Kolli Hills with friends: 3X Jeep Compass and a Kia Seltos

9th October 2024, 17:38 by Kanad Kalasur

The 70 hairpin-bends, good roads, lesser crowd makes it an ideal getaway from Bangalore. Apart from me, none in the group have gone to this place.

BHPian arun_josie recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Drive to Kolli Hills (Kolli Malai) with friends.

It was quite some time since our last group drive with friends, so we decided to go on an overnight trip. After few discussions, we decided to go to Kolli Hills. I have done a day drive to Kolli Hills 7-8 years back. Apart from me, none in the group have gone to this place. The 70 hairpin-bends, good roads, lesser crowd makes it an ideal getaway from Bangalore.

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Bangalore – Kolli Hills drive:

We were 9 of them and initial plan was to go in 2 cars, but we ended up with 4. As usual, I filled up the tank the previous night and recharged the Fasttag. The drive was on a Friday and the return on Saturday. As planned, we started around 5am. The traffic was very less, and our first stop was at a farm near Krishnagiri. This place was 20Kms away from the highway but it was a nice drive via some green fields and good roads.

The farm near Krishnagiri

A nice morning walk :-) Green fields and fresh air.

After spending some time here, we returned on the same route and stopped for breakfast at Murugan Idli Shop. Even though it was a weekday we had to wait for 10 minutes to get a table. We spent about one hour here and then proceeded towards Kolli Hills.

After crossing Salem, we took the Kalangani – Thirumalapatty Rd, this was good all through. Google took as through some narrow roads as well. We stopped at the base of the Kolli Hills for few minutes before the climb.
The road is very good all through and it was fun driving, especially the never-ending hairpin bends towards the end. Some of the hairpin bends are very steep and narrow but it’s not an issue if you have the momentum. The traffic was very less with occasional minibus or trucks passing by.

Stay @ Camp Nomad by the lake:

The best stay option in Kolli Hills is Silverline Resort. However, since ours was a guys-only trip, we were looking for some offbeat location where its just us and not mixed with other crowds. After doing some research, I came across this place Camp Nomad. This place is just next to the lake and away from the town. A very peaceful location, little bit of off-roading from the main road is needed to reach this place. The rooms are spacious, and the food was good.
The cook and the caretaker were very friendly and served us great good. In fact, when we asked them to cook mutton dish, they sourced the mutton from Senthamangalam and got it delivered via a local passenger bus which comes to Kolli hills in the night.

The mutton chukka and the gravy they prepared for us was awesome. Even their chicken dishes and the veg dishes were good.

Little bit of off-roading/bad roads from the main road to the entry of this place

Few couldn't resist rolling on this lawn

A nice setup to sit and relax

View from the glass room

That standard room

Camp Fire

Drive within Kolli Hills:

There aren’t many options to visit in/around Kolli hills. We visited the Seeku Parai viewpoint, the lake and Maasila falls. We also drove around for about 30 Kms on the hill. The roads were good all through and narrow at most of the places. The good thing was it was not crowded with rarely a car or bus passing by.

View from the Seeku Parai viewpoint