A Green and Cool Sunday

 

 This was the first ride that happened after joining xbhp in the month of June 2009. Before the rains started to come in, we decided to go for a monsoon ride to the most popular hill station so near to tvm, just around 65 kms from the city,  yet i haven't visited this place in rains. The first time i went to ponmudi was in December 2008 on a hot sunny day and it was a big disaster ! Scorching hot sun discouraged us to visit till the top station , we decided to come back from before the check post. It was a lesson learned well then,'never go to a hill station when there is no rain' !! Even though i ve been to the same place not less than 15 times after this, it never ceases to amuse me with the beautiful roads, lush greenery , awesome climate and the company of some of the most awesome biking brotherhood. Whenever the clouds set in and i ve nothing to do, just cross check with the guys, and leave home :) Thats the way to some peace of mind ! Last time i had been there is on the new year eve and i m itching to ride up once again seeing the all day long drizzles and beautiful climate here in tvm.

 The men and the machines which gave me company for this awesome ride were Arun-Karizma, Anish-Disco 112, Nithin- P150, Varunrtr- RTR160. This time i was having the company of some born experienced tourers like arun and nithin, anish was nithin's collegue. As per the plan, there were 6-7 riders, but in the last moment, tintu and binoy(who suggested and planned it) skipped it due to other prior engagements. Finally we decided to stick onto our plans and started of at 7:30 from the starting point. Just before the foothills, we stopped for a small breakfast and then started to climb the golden hill , 22 beautiful hairpins ,absolutely nobody on the roads and scenic locations all around us.

After stopping for photo sessions all the way up , it took us whole 4 hours for a 50 km ride , which otherwise takes less than 2 hours ! But it was worth every moment and we thoroughly enjoyed and even at 11 am, it seemed as if its just 7am.

It was profile pic clicking session for us after that, out of which this one was my pic in social networking sites for long and nithin's too for long. The roads were completely filled with dense fog and it was slightly drizzling too which added to the woes. The visibility was absolutely minimum and we had to identify the road by the tail lamp of the bike going in front. We played it safe by going below 25 and it was so much fun ! We could notice some small landslides at many places on the way , but luckily nothing blocked the way and could stop us :D.

 

After crossing the checkpost by paying Rs 10 for each bike and 5 for one each person, we proceeded to top station.It was then we found this small photo point in a small forest. After another photo session here, while starting the bikes, a man was coming down tried to scare us saying this is usually the place some wild animals come out of the den at these times ! haha...no scaring us, we waited some more time there and then climbed up to the top station. I was simply taken aback by the splendid natural view from the hill top there. We sat there for almost an hour and during this time, clouds came and went through us and i was like standing in heaven, literally ! I ve only dreamt about standing on the clouds and it was satisfied finally ! After another photo session , we decided to climb down with heavy heart , as i never want to leave this awesome place if not for the hungry stomach !

 En route, we found another road going somewhere and we decided to check out that too as part of the exploration. :D . It was just leading to some quarters of employees of the estate there and nothing there, but it gave some good panoramic view which nithin captured in his cam well. After a very short photo session(compared to what we had in the morning), we headed back without spending much time there. The return run was a ripping session as rains ceased and the roads well laid. We reached Anish's house at kowdiar in just one hour and started to copy the pics to the cam and to our amazement, it came to more than 500 clicks in a few hours time from all our cams :O . Creating some everlasting memories, we parted ways making our plans for the next ride.

The road never stops for us, hardcore riders. Even after 2 years, this green and cool sunday is still etched in my memory and will be , forever as it marks the start of a wonderful journey with a new family and breed of humans called bikers. I ve never enjoyed  ponmudi  so well after this, may be coz it was the first time and taking my own time to explore in and out of it, but it ll not be the same again !

The original thread on xbhp which i just thought of revisiting to refresh the memories.. :
http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/tourer/8281-green-cool-sunday.html

The sudden surge of motivation to pen this down...well, a new thread on the same which brought back old memories..:
http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/tourer/17864-ponmudi-hill-range-revisited.html