Trek to Velliangiri Hills

It was midsummer but the heatwave did not repent us from planning for a trek. Velliangiri Hills was one such destination in our minds; away from the Chennai nestled in the Western ghats near Coimbatore.

                To start the trek one has to reach Poondi a small town in the base of the foothills with a temple from where the trek starts. Poondi is easily accessible from Coimbatore City as there are plenty of buses plying to this place.

                We were six of us (Guna,Bilal, Mani, Bala, Barani and myself) and boarded a bus from chennai at 9.30pm towards coimbatore on  a humid friday night in May (We decided against going on a bike as it would make us tired). We reached Coimbatore in the morning at 6.30 had a quick breakfast and made a plan for the day. Since coimbatore was hotter than we expected we had to put the idea of day trek to rest and planned for to start the trek late in the noon. We were looking for options to spend the morning and decided upon the Isha yoga center which was near to Poondi. We reached the Isha Yoga Center at 9.30, there we came across few trekkers and queried about their hike. They could not cross the second hill because of the scorching sun and we felt vindicated of our decision. Isha Yoga center provided us good time to relax and learn some quick meditation and breathing exercises. We had our lunch outside the Isha yoga Center and started towards Poondi temple.

                We reached the Poondi Temple at 1.30, packed biscuits, bananas and nuts for our hike. We also bought a bamboo stick which would be our third leg while on trek. We had a quick visit to the shrine and were greeted by a forest guard at the base of the plight of stairs towards the hill. Our bags were vetted for any plastic products and were removed.

Velliangiri Hills

                The trek towards the cave temple is 6kms long according to Google maps (though we would contest that) and comprises of 7 hills. The first hill is a steep staircase which keeps moving high until you reach the Vellai Vinayagar Temple. This part of the trek was the hardest for us. While we reached halfway through the first mountain we had our first wicket gone, Guna could not climb anymore and returned back to coimbatore, we were reduced to five in number now!!!

Barani whiling away the time as rest of the gang catches up

                The second and the third hill are a mixture of stairs and walkways through forests. Along the trek towards the second hill one will come across a natural spring where cold water flows from the rocks. We replenished our water bottles and had a quick break over there. And not to mention there were a lot of shops selling fruits, lemon soda, biscuits and buttermilk all along the way.

Bilal posing on the way to the third hill

                The fourth and fifth hills were free flowing walkways, though the rocks strewn around hindered our pace. We could notice the dramatic shift in the terrain compared to the first three hills. We could see grass or shrubs all over the place and the rocks had given way to soil which were orange colored. We also noticed that we were walking at the edge of a big mountain all along. Soon sunlight faded away and it was time for our torches.

Crossing the fourth hill

On top of the fifth hill- Enjoying the sunset at the edge of a cliff

               

                The Sixth hill was to be descended downwards and the soft soil gave away easily with our weights. In some places we had to sit and get down going along the away. At the base of the sixth hill there was a small pond, we decided to take a quick bath and changed our soiled clothes. We ate the fruits which we had taken along and started towards the seventh hill.

The Seventh Hill

                The Seventh hill was a steep and long ascending. We could see the silhouette of the hill in the moonlit darkness. The trek on the hill was hard as it was a mixture of rocks and soft soil. We could feel the temperature dropping heavily and the soil was literally cold as water sprinkling all over our feet.

The Caves

The cave was more of a cutout section in the huge hillock rock. Legend has it that the lingas in the caves were naturally formed. We reached the cave at 9pm, offered prayers to the natural lingam present over there, and soon started our descend towards the base. We decided to take quick breaks on the way along rather than halting for long hours.

DOWNWARD NIGHTMARE

                The trek downhill was a nightmare, the crowd for to see the temple had started to trickle up and choked the way all along the hills. Worse still all the shops had run out of water or any kind of eatables because of the unforeseen crowd. We reached the summit of the first hill at 3'o clock and decided to take a quick nap. Mani had prepared well in advance for this occasion and brought a tarpaulin with him which came in handy. We slept for two hours and started to descend and reached the Poondi Temple at 5.30. We replenished ourselves, took rest, had breakfast and took a bus towards coimbatore at 8 in the morning.

                Guna who had discontinued the trek in the start took a room for himself which came in handy for us to take some rest and bathe ourselves. We took the 2.55pm Kovai Express and reached Chennai at 10.30PM (The heat on the day train literally baked us and barani was complaining why i had not booked in an Air Conditioned coach).

The five member team

NO PAIN NO GAIN         

The trek in itself was arduous because of the steep climb in certain areas and scorching sun which roasted us. Everyone were wincing in muscle pain all along the return journey and it continued for the next day or two. But we were delightful in a way that we had reached the summit and completed the trek successfully!!!