Wow, what a trip! That was the word spoke by all the bikers after this wonderful weekend trip which was planned over a smoking break two days before making the trip!
Horsley Hills – A wonderful little hill station located in Andhra Pradesh, Chitoor District. I found this place when browsing through the Internet. Very little told or written about this place. I discussed with my friends over instant messenger and they agreed to make this trip happen.
Bikers:
Vignesh (myself) – Thunderbird 2003
Jagdish – Thunderbird 2005
Yuvaraj – Thunderbird 2006
Arvind – Pillion Rider
Bharath – Pillion Rider
We did not know what to expect at Horsley Hills, we did not make any reservations for our stay or did call up AP Tourism for any enquires; we just planned to pack the bags and leave at 03:00 hrs on 6th May 2006. All of us work in night shifts except for Jags and Bharath. On Friday I planned to leave office at 22:00 hrs so that I could catch up some sleep before starting off the next morning but I was stuck up at work till 23:30 hrs. It was half past midnight when I was on my bed. Yuvaraj was not working on Friday but Arvind worked the entire shift and was done only by 02:30 hrs, he went straight to Yuvaraj’s house to start the trip. We all assembled in front of Bharath’s flat near the Miot Hospital and the journey kicked off at 04:00 hrs.
Except for me most of the guys were new to riding long distances. I like to have very minimal and only essential breaks during my ride. The first break was 10 minutes into the trip for couple of guys wanted to draw money from the ATM and top up fuel. We crossed Ponnamallee without any incidents and cruised steadily on Bangalore Highway. We had a quick pit stop before Ranipet to get some water and had some tea. After crossing the tollbooth we took a right turn and headed towards Chitoor. At 08:30 hrs before reaching Chitoor we had breakfast at a roadside dhaba, we had roties with chicken, dhal fry and eggs. After a good breakfast we rode hard towards Horsley Hills crossing Chitoor via the bypass road, the road between Chitoor and Palamneer was great but the best part of the trip was the road between Palamneer and Madhanapalli – the winding road running through reserve forest was a real treat for a biker riding each and every curve, every uphill and every downhill at 80 Km/hr was fun. One could feel the efficiency of a Bullet when riding on those kinds of roads at that speed.
By noon we reached the foot hills of Horsley Hills and the destination was just 11 Kms. Uphill with four hair pin bends and great view of the valley and the tiny hamlets below. We stopped midway for a photo session and we reached the reception of AP Tourism Development and got ourselves into a cozy little cottage and relaxed for couple of hours and started to explore the area. We climbed to the tallest point to get an amazing view of the valley around us and waited till the sun set to see those brilliant colors. We returned to our cottage and ordered food and played cards well into the night.
The guys were snoring hard in their sleep I had a tough time sleeping but still managed to sleep for a few hours. I woke up at 03:00 hrs on Sunday morning. I wanted to catch up with a few more hours of sleep as we had planned to go to Gurramkonda Fort which is about 50 Kms from Horsley Hills. But finding it very tough to sleep because of the snoring I decided to walk around Horsley Hills all alone in the dark. I first started off by visiting the view point behind the Governor’s bungalow and the strolled past the police station and the nearly ruined Bharath Scouts & Guides Camp House – this camp house brought back lots of old memories form my scouting days. Then I walked to the Wind Cliff and waited for the sunrise.
I came back to the cottage only to find the guys still snoring and decided to clean my bike. This is when I had the shock of my trip – I found my exhaust pipe had cracked right in the middle with just quarter of an inch only holding the metal. This made me more and more worried. Now the guys started to wake up and were worried just as me after coming to know about the exhaust pipe crack. We decided to cancel the trip to Gurramkonda Fort and go to Madanapalli to get the silencer fixed. I managed to get some M-Seal to stick on the cracked silencer and we left Horsley Hills behind us. He stopped on the way down hill for a photo session and next stop was Madanapalli. We reached Madanapalli only to find the exhaust pipe was completely broken and it took a good 1 hour for us to get the silencer welded. Now my Bullet started to roar happily once again. We zoomed past Madanapalli and Palamneer and we stopped at a Reliance A1 Plaza for lunch.
We had a pretty heavy lunch as we all skipped our breakfast. After riding for a few kilometers after lunch Arvind was not able to sit and requested me to stop. By now we had crossed into Tamil Nadu – Arvind was too tired to come along anymore and even thought of taking a bus back to Chennai but after resting for almost an hour he was feeling much better to continue to ride. We reached Chennai uneventfully riding steadily at 80 Km/hr. By 19:00 I was at by bed thanking my steed for bringing me back home safe!
Ride Well My Friends!
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