Vellingiri Hills, Coimbatore . The best trek covering 7 hills From Vellingiri Foothills To Survani .

OUR TRIP TO VELLINGIRI HILLS

It was Friday afternoon and for this weekend, we thought of somewhere for an adventure. My friend Zac was very interested to have an adventure travel. He is from Adoor and had his Degree from UK. Somewhere towards the east, we were able to see a huge mountain with a long tip on the top, we asked the local people about the hills and no one knew where it was.

Some told it was a place a few hundred Kilometers away and some others told, it may be Ooty ( A hill station in Tamilnadu). With no inputs about the place, we opened the NASA world viewer. I connected my GPS and referred the satellite view to the east. We were able to track the mountain. A mountain 17 Kilometers away from Coimbatore (By Air), with an altitude of 1800 meters above sea level, with a height of 1240 meters from base. We tracked the route and the locations into my GPS.

Interactive Zoomable Google Map ofVELLINGIRI HILLS The Rock at the top of vellingiri Hills]Interactive Zoomable Google Map ofVELLINGIRI HILLS FOOT The Temple At the Foot of the Vellingiri hills]

There ware monkey all around. It was not an easy job, to drive them away, as they were after us like watch dogs.There were a number of streams, which fetched fresh water. After reaching at an altitude of about 1200 meters, the whole changed. There were no big trees, but just Nila Kurinjis all around. Nila Kurinji is a special plant which blooms only once in 12 Years ,which grows at high altitudes and is found in Munnar and Palany Hills of south India. The whole place was covered with blue flowers. At a distance down we were able to see the Plains below (decan Plateau) and the Coimbatore town. We climbed again to top. At around, we reached at a place which was locally called Sitamala, from were we were able to see the tip of the mountain. When we looked left we were able to see the Shurvani Dam, from where drinking water is supplied to Coimbatore. We had out lunch and slept for some time. By evening we started climbing the tip. Though the distance was less than a few hundred meters, it took some 2 hours to reach the top of the hill as is was so steep.

SIGHTS AT THE TOP

We were amazed to see the 3 Pillar rocks to the top, each were about 15 meters high, and to our surprise there was a big cave under that. The cave was about 20 meters wide. One of the rocks resembles the head of a king with crown and there was another which resembled the head of a dog.

We planned to stay there on the top on that day. We kept the bags in the cave and went all around for a few hours. We were able to see a few eagle rocks, Beautiful Hills laid all around decorated with multicolor, leaves. The sight was so spectacular. As it was getting late and darker, we planed to enter into the forest next day. We met a few Local Tribal people there. It was getting too cold and so we collected a bunch of firewood to be burnt. By 8, we had our upper and sat in the cave. We setup a fireplace in the cave and crawled in the sleeping bags. We felt fast asleep and it was not too chilling as we expected. At some point of time, I just opened my eyes and I had a glance on the very special event, it was as is if we were looking the earth from heaven. It was morning; the whole hills were like an island inside the cloud, which spread all around, as a layer. It was so spectacular to see the sun rise and the cloud base all around. We sat there seeing this sight for more than half an hour.

Now we had a meeting with the tribal people on the top, and had a trek in the forest nearby with them. We shot a handful of photos and by 12 we started climbing down and reached back Coimbatore by around 6 in the evening.

PHOTO GALLERY

EVENING SUNSET PHOTOS AND OUR TRIP TO VELLINGIRI