On July 24/25th, we headed out to Coorg and Wayanad with Mud­dy­Boots (a new adven­ture com­pany) for a spice coun­try cycling trail. Here is an account of the trip.

The mis­sion
To cycle through Coorg and Ker­ala : around 200 kms of coun­try roads through spice plan­ta­tions, forests, hills and some amaz­ingly beau­ti­ful scenery. This was designed to be a 3 day spice trail but a cou­ple of us had to get back on Sun­day so we opted for 2 days and sadly had to miss out on the last day. But even the 2 days were spectacular…

The men behind the mis­sion
The orga­niz­ers : Muddy Boots : Pradeep, Roby and Ram were amaz­ing : they know the Wayanad area like the back of their hands and did a great job in find­ing some nice off roads that we would never really use if we had gone as tourists. On the cycle we got to see much more of Wayanad — par­tic­u­larly vil­lages and towns that we had never seen before. I loved the green and ver­dant coun­try­side stop­ping often to take pic­tures : I couldn’t really resist cap­tur­ing the breath-taking scenery. Roby kept me com­pany for a large part of the sec­ond day’s stretch since I was quite dis­tracted by the sights around while the rest seemed to be rac­ing ahead. And I still haven’t mas­tered the art (like Dinesh) of tak­ing pic­tures while cycling, so I had to dis­mount every time I wanted to take a picture.

The gang
Man­jula : super biker, trav­eler, pho­tog­ra­pher, run­ner, and entre­pre­neur
Dinesh : another soul with adven­ture in his blood and also one of the founders of Wild­craft
Seema : super­woman : she’s scaled moun­tains, trekked in remote cor­ners of India and can also kick anyone’s ass walk­ing, cycling, run­ning, climb­ing
And me :-p

The “rel­a­tively flat roads” of Wayanad!

Right at the very begin­ning, Pradeep described the route as com­pris­ing of rel­a­tively flat roads. I made him change the descrip­tion to “undu­lat­ing roads” after our two days there!

Word of cau­tion: there are no flat roads either in Coorg or Wayanad!

On day 1, early morn­ing, we were trans­ported to Hun­sur and after break­fast, we geared up for the first stretch of cycling at around 1130 am. The cycles : Trek 3700s came in a tempo from across the bor­der in Ker­ala. Hel­mets, gloves and water bot­tles fixed : we set off : Pradeep and Roby of Mud­dy­Boots join­ing us for the stretch from Pan­chavalli to Gonigop­pal. We had two back-up vehi­cles with our lug­gage and food. And a bike doc­tor, Baba who made sure every­thing was in order.

The weather was pretty nice and we nav­i­gated through pleas­ant coun­try roads to reach Gonigop­pal (around 25 kms stretch) where we had lunch.

After lunch, the bikes were trans­ported by a tempo to another place which was around 10–12 kms away. From here (amidst cof­fee plan­ta­tions) we started off again. The after lunch stretch was quite dif­fer­ent : we entered forests in Kodagu and then encoun­tered a really bad stretch of road where thank­fully the pot­holes had been filled up but it was still rather bumpy. And then another for­est area and a for­est check post at Tholpetty and then on to Kutta.

It took me some get­ting used to the moun­tain bike : since I ride a hybrid now : I am not used to putting so much effort into pedalling!

After Kutta, as we crossed into Ker­ala, the roads actu­ally got bet­ter and smoother. Our last stretch for the day : around 20 kms in the for­est was the best : smooth roads and a lot of down­hills and a slight driz­zle made it a joy to ride.

We finally reached our des­ti­na­tion : a home­s­tay in Thirunelli at around 6 pm. The driz­zle had got­ten slightly harder so we all got a lit­tle drenched but it was a nice note on which we ended the day. A total of around 60 kms was what we clocked. And to end a great day we had some deli­cious Ker­ala food for dinner.

The next day we were up early and ready before 7 am. First stop was the Thirunelli tem­ple : unfor­tu­nately Seema from our group was not allowed in as she was mis­taken for a for­eigner. The bikes were all checked again by Baba and we set off again. The first stretch was through very muddy vil­lage roads with ponds, banana plan­ta­tions, streams, hills all around : it was beau­ti­ful to say the least. I got down sev­eral times from the bike to take pictures.

From here, we had a cou­ple of steep uphills to con­quer. Nandi Hills sud­denly seemed easy in com­par­i­son! It was tir­ing to say the least but Roby kept me com­pany : he had to look out for the slow­est in the gang :-)

Pradeep had promised rea­son­ably flat roads after this uphill stretch so I dreamt of some nice flat coun­try roads. Alas, it was not to be! After this steep uphill, we had an even tougher climb on the route to lunch.

We had packed lunch that day and we found a school com­pound and rested there for a while. After that, it was off to our next des­ti­na­tion : Sul­tan Bath­ery. The road was awe­some (the qual­ity, not the incline!) but the weather had got­ten hot­ter. And not only that : it was a long slow incline nearly all the way for around a 25 kms stretch. Lunch well digested we stopped on the way to sight a wild tusker some­where off the main road.

This was a tough stretch. Finally reached around 330–4 pm. The rest who were already there went off to see Edakkal caves. Instead of wait­ing for them to get back I started off towards our last halt for the day.

This was my best stretch : it was through small towns and then plan­ta­tions in the shadow of the hills. I ped­aled furi­ously as I wanted to get to the home­s­tay before sundown.

Photo cour­tesy: Pradeep

We had been told that this was one beau­ti­ful loca­tion. And I’m glad I got there a lit­tle early. I over­shot the devi­a­tion to the home­s­tay and reached Mep­padi when Pradeep called me back. The home­s­tay was at Chun­dale and I returned the 1–2 kms I had overshot!

From the main road, fol­low­ing some nar­row bumpy stretches we finally arrived at the home­s­tay and as promised it was a really scenic place. It was perched on a hill­side with direct view of a water­fall and the Chem­bra range. Below you could see a river mean­der­ing through the val­ley. I was tempted to stay another day but we had work in Ban­ga­lore that meant we had to head back..

Din­ner was Ker­ala del­i­ca­cies again : tapi­oca and green chill­ies chut­ney and fish : curry and fry. After hav­ing two rounds of din­ner, we finally said our good­byes and left the gang and headed to the bus stop.

The ver­dict
Ker­ala in this weather is fan­tas­tic. We didn’t get much rain but the sur­round­ings are green and lush mak­ing it an extremely scenic time of the year.

The cycling was tough but the good food made up for all the effort. I’d rec­om­mend this to:
1) Those of you who enjoy cycling and have been doing it reg­u­larly
2) Are cycling reg­u­larly and want a chal­leng­ing ride through some really scenic coun­try­side
3) Those who con­sider adven­ture as a good hol­i­day!
4) Want to enjoy great Ker­ala food
5) Expe­ri­ence the green out­doors, the amaz­ing scenery, the var­ied trails, and just being out in nature!

The next trip from Spice Trail

Muddy Boots is launch­ing more Spice Coun­try Trail trips. So if you’ve been suit­ably excited by my expe­ri­ence, then do get in touch with Pradeep and gang!

Dates:
2 day cycling on 29–30 Aug
2 day cycling on 5–6 Oct
3 day cycling on 19–21 Oct

Details:

Places are lim­ited to the first 6, so please email info@muddyboots.in, or call Pradeep at 99005 68784.
Taste of an ear­lier trip

~ More pics from the Spice Coun­try Trail