Single day trek to MakaliDurga (May 15, 2016)

It was long time since we went for a trek with office mates.
Even though it was summer, we decided to go for one day trek. After filtering out many options, we decided to visit MakaliDurga.
We planned to start at 4:30 AM in the morning with a  gang 8 -  Shantanu, kp, Vivek, SaiKiran, Piyush, Murali, Dibya, Myself.  Shantanu and Vivek agreed to get their cars. We were delayed by an hour and finally hit the road around 5:30.
We reached MakaliDurga railway station by 7 AM. After a quick photo session, we started walking along the railway tracks towards the hill. After reaching the mile stone number 54/400, we took a left deviation towards the hill.
The trek  path was marked with white lines and all that we need to do is to follow the arrows. We got little adventurous and decided to take a random path to reach the top.

This path was clear and we did not have much difficulty except for one place. From any point on the hill, we could see the railway track. Once we reached the top, we took out our remaining snacks and enjoyed the cool weather. There is a very small temple on the top which is not operational.
After posing for few pics, we headed  towards the foot of the hill. We relied on google maps for the route and got  misdirected and took a wrong path. Instead of taking 1 hour to reach the base, we almost took 4 hours. Because of this we ran out of water and the energy levels went low.
We did not have an option but to force ourselves to walk. Fortunately we found a motor pump which pumps water to the fields. We were relieved that we got some water to drink and our energy levels raised.
After a quick break, we started back. We found a lake nearby and decided to cool ourselves in the pure water. After a refreshing bath, we started towards the railway track. Finally we were on track to the railway station. We reached the station at 5 PM completely drained out of energy.
We started around 5:30 to Bangalore. 

Trip to Kukke, Dharmastala, Hornadu, Sringeri

A single day trip over a weekend. Four of us Kranthi, V Sairam , Satyanvesh and myself decided to go Kukke. We found that there are other attractions near by kukke which we should not miss.

We started on Saturday morning (20th Feb 2016) around 1 AM in a Indica cab. The route is Yashwantpur-Nelamangala-Hassan-Sakleshpur-Kukke.
We reached Kukke around 6:30 AM. It was a good time to visit the temple as the number of devotees were  less. We quickly finished our darshan in the temple shrine and immediately started towards Dharmastala.

The road to Dharmastala is fairly good. We reached the place at 9 AM. It was a big lane outside the temple but luckily we finished our darshan pretty quick. There was food arranged inside the temple complex but we were too early for that. Without wasting much time, we headed
towards Hornadu.

Hornadu is famous for Annapoorneshwari temple and is also famous for serving free food to all the devotees visiting the place. As soon as we reached, we first finished our lunch and started towards temple for darshan. It was a quick darshan inside the temple as the crowd was less.

The last place to be visited in the list is Sringeri. Reached this place by evening around 5 PM. As all of us were hungry we had snacks just outside the Matt. We spent good amount of time inside the
Matt. There was a musical program being performed in the auditorium. This place has a nice view of the river flowing next to it. Since our driver wanted to take some rest, we spent some extra time inside the premises.

We started back to Bangalore around 7:30 PM. We could not travel continuously as the driver was tired and wanted to take rest for some time.
Finally we reached our home around 3 AM  on Sunday. Every thing went on well  according to the plan and we reached home safe.