Kodaikanal-Detour

We had planned a 3-day tour to the princess of hills – Kodaikanal, covering 460kms going across different hills around Kodaikanal.

Day 1

The first day we left city at 5 am- a very standard time for almost every cyclist to start a long ride. Went through wonderful village inroads of Tamilnadu and reaching to a place called Palani, which is one of the major cities when travelling to Kodaikanal.

By 12.30 pm we are at the very first hairpin bend to Kodaikanal with 132 km already covered on the wheels. And it’s not easy to climb during summers.

We went fine till the first 7 km, and then we hit the wall. The frequency of breaks increases, and we hit a realisation that day 1 is not going to be easy. We continue with depleted energies and reach a small shack to refuel ourselves. After having the traditional rice rasam, we continue our climbs again. At this stage it’s getting dark, so at every break we walked to save time.

Finally exhausted, we finish our day 1 at the town of Perumalmalai, which is 10 km before Kodaikanal, at around 7.30 pm by covering 172 km for the day.

Day 2

Days on hills are pleasant in summers. Hence, we planned detour of Kodaikanal and then reach another beautiful town called Thandigudi .

Distance-wise, things look okay since today the distance is just going to be 80km with just hill rides. However, on a tour one should not be very stringent about plans because it changes. During evening hours from 4 to 6 pm rain god gave us the surprise of continuous showers, adding to it at Thandigudi because of a film shoot; all resorts, cottages, and dormitories were booked. After trying our luck until 6.30 pm and failing to secure a stay for the night, we decided to ride down the hill and reach the town Dindigul in the plains, where we could stay.

This came as the most difficult part of the ride since we had to descend a very beautiful but narrow valley on wet roads at night with very limited light visibility. We did succeed in doing that and called the day off at Dindigul around 9.30 pm by covering some 135 km.

Day 3

Today was going to be a no-brainer ride of 160km, straight on plains to Coimbatore at 40+ degrees. We did do this within our capacity but with the caution of being fuelled with food and water properly and limiting consumption of energy drinks, milkshakes, etc