Motor bike trip to Ganalu Falls and Shivanasamudra – 7th June, 2015

It had been quite a while since I went on a road trip on my bike, hence when I saw mail from BASC with the title, I immediately felt the need to register for the trip. To make things better, I noticed that the organizer was Patrick Samuel, with whom I had been on a New Year day bike ride to Kanva reservoir. So immediately registered for the event and received the confirmation as well.

On Sunday, 7^th June, 2015 we all decided to meet at Jayadeva Flyover at 6.15 AM. Everyone were on time and we left Jayadeva by 6.30 AM as per schedule. We headed towards Kanakapura road and couple of folks joined us near Banashankari. Once we crossed the NICE road – Kanakapura road junction, we parked the vehicles on the side of a road and had the customary introduction.

Post the introductions we headed towards our first destination – Ganalu Falls. It was around 7.30 AM as we entered Kanakapura. We decided to have our breakfast at Vasu Hotel. However, since it being a Sunday, the place was extremely crowded. Hence we decided to visit another hotel for our breakfast. Hot idli-vada with spicy sambhar and some hot tea, all of us were set to resume our journey. Soon we were zooming past the pristine Kanakapura Road (NH – 209). We all decided that our next stop would be Sathanur. The road was in great condition most of the times, with some stretches being recently re-laid. This way, we could maintain good speeds and were as per our schedule. We all regrouped at Sathanur and then decided our next stop would be Halaguru, where we were supposed to take a turn from the NH. As per our plan, we reached Halaguru at around 9 AM. We then took the village road towards Ganalu. We did lose some time as we were stuck behind a tractor for a considerable amount of time in a narrow road. The sight of Yamaha Fazer, Bullet, R15 and Karizma ZMR dragged some eyeballs from the curious looking villagers.

At one junction we took the help of the villagers, as we were not very sure regarding the route that GPS and Google Maps were showing us. However the ever helpful villagers made sure that we were always on the right path. Few stretches of the village roads were also in great condition. However, post some distance, we had to take a muddy path to reach the waterfalls. This road was completely filled with gravel and gave us a good chance to test our bikes off-roading capabilities. Somehow we were able to reach the waterfalls by following the sound of water. We parked our bikes and headed down the trail to the water falls. It was a small path to the falls and we reached quite quickly. Though the water in the falls was not at high levels, it was good enough, considering it was summer. We had a quick photo session and drank some cool fresh water directly from the streams. We decided to head back and climbed our way up the rocks. The uphill climb was a bit taxing as by then it was around 11 AM and the sun had reached its maximum power.

We started our bikes and headed back. We had crossed a stream on our way in. We decided that a dip in the canal was a must and all of us stopped our bikes  and headed for the water. It was a great feeling to get inside the water.

Post the swimming session and few more pics on our bikes with the background as the canal, we headed back to NH 209 to continue our journey towards Shivanasamudra. We decided to have our lunch at Malavalli. Post the filling lunch we headed towards Gaganachukki view point and reached by 2PM. We also had plans to visit Bharachukki, however with the bridge being closed we decided against it. The view of Gaganachukki was simply breathtaking. The water levels were considerably high. We decided to head back to Bengaluru and had some refreshments at Gaganachukki view point.

Post that we hit NH 209 and were riding back towards Bengaluru at decent speeds. We had decided to meet at all important junctions to make sure that we don’t miss anyone. During one of our stops at Halaguru, we learnt that one of the bikes had a punctured rear tyre. So we waited for it to be repaired and headed back to Bengaluru. We were back at the NICE road junction by 5PM and bid our final goodbyes to each other.

Participants: Patrick (Karizma ZMR), Bhupati (Pulsar), Ramkumar and Dinesh (R15), Manoj (Bullet 500),Pravin and Avinash (Impulse), Pramod and Gan (Fazer)

Total Distance covered: RT Nagar to RT Nagar – 330 KM

Route: Bengaluru – Kanakapura – Sathanur – Halaguru – Ganalu – Halaguru – Malavalli – Gaganachukki – Malavalli – Sathanur – Kanakapura – Bengaluru.

Road Conditions: Good most of the times. (Single lane NH 209 and village roads)

Ride level: Easy-Moderate

Best time to visit Ganalu: Post monsoons, since the approach roads can get very tricky to drive during monsoon, and during summer the water levels can be very low.

Best time to visit Gaganachukki: June – January.

Written by:

Event Organised by: Patrick Samuel

Date: 7th June 2015

Composed by: Ramakrishna Nagaraja

Image Gallery: Manoj