Re: The Ooty-Bandipur Solo ride!

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Re: The Ooty-Bandipur Solo ride!

The urge had set in, the urge to ride, and I had to get it out of my system soon. .


The destination was fixed, it had to be Ooty and Bandipur. This was my second time in Ooty this year, in fact Ooty got etched into my head when I travelled (by car) on the beautiful roads of Kotagiri a few months before, I knew it right then and there, these roads had to be done on my bike and well, Bandipur was always on top of my list of "to do rides" but this, alas, always remained a dream because of lack of company to ride with.

So it was done, decided, I had to ride alone. In fact I only asked a few close riding buddies of mine if they'd join me but this was just out of courtesy as deep down I wanted to do this ride alone. This time around my prep for the ride was extra special, this meant spare cables,a puncture kit and a pre-ride check up with my trusted mechanic, were top priority.

All set and done, I waited patiently for D-day, my leave was approved (thanks to my ever kind supervisor at work) and I was ready to roll. The plan was to start at 4am from Chennai and reach ooty at the most by 4pm.

The intinerary for the day was:
Chennai-Ulundurpet-Salem-Bhavani-Avinasi-Annur-Metupalayam-Kotagiri-Ooty
Trip distance- 520kms

I started by 4:30am on a fine friday morning and made my first stop, for breakfast at Ulundurpet A2B at 6:45am. (180kms in 2hrs! I was doing good speeds on the GST!)
Post breakfast my only stop was at a fuel station and after about 7 hours of riding I was at Metupalayam.

So in about 7 hours time I had covered 480kms. The time was 12:00 pm, I called up the resort where I had booked a room and asked them to keep lunch ready. Now starting from Metupalayam I took it slow, my intention was to enjoy the scenery and click as many photographs as possible. I took the diversion to Kotagiri and took about 2 hours to reach my destination. After checking in, the first thing I did was gorge on some hot phulkas and some lip smacking mixed veg. curry.

Some pics taken en-route Ooty:








Post lunch I made a few mandatory status update phone calls and within no time dozed off. I actually wanted to ride around town but then again a small nap turned into my usual sleep routine and stretched for 4 hours till I woke up at 6:30 pm. A cup of coffee later I was on my bike again, roaming around on the streets of Ooty. I even took a ride halfway to the Dodabetta junction but decided to stop after a certain point as it was too dark and I didn't want to push my luck. I returned to my room up top at tiger hill,had a quick dinner and dozed off by 12:00am.

The next morning I woke up by 6:00am, my itinerary for the day was not clear, I was confused whether to stay and spend the day at Ooty or ride to Bangalore via Bandipur, my itch to ride had set in again, so I decided to checkout post breakfast and ride to Bangalore via Bandipur, but then again there was one place I had to visit before leaving, this place comes highly recommended by my, well, uh biking guru :P,So I set out at 7am to Emerald lake.







The ride to emerald was simply, mind blowing, the roads were empty and the mist hadn't yet cleared out. There were stretches in between where I would be riding alone for miles together with no human being in sight. It was eternal bliss, riding through misty roads covered with greenery all around. It took me about an hour to get to Emerald lake, the last few kms of the ride is on broken roads and I believe it would be tough on a car, unless it has decent ground clearance. Though the place is a bit remote, I wasn't afraid as occasionally a local would walk by going about their usual business.
So I stood there for about half an hour, just taking in the view, letting the greenery seep into me, for it would be a while before I see such a beautiful place again, or will I ever?



Coming up next is the ride post breakfast to Bangalore, via Bandipur