Trek to Bilikallu Rangaswamy Betta
There are tons of small hillocks to scale on the outskirts of Bangalore. On this hot saturday morning we chose one of them on the Kanakapura Road, called Bilikallu Rangaswamy Betta. Varun, Ozzy and myself started at 8AM from Banashankari bus stop. We travelled on the Kanakapura Road till we hit a place called Harohalli, a little before Kanakapura. Here we took a left turn into a narrow village street, travelled through Maralwadi and finally parked our car at another small village called Koonal Doddi. This village is the starting point for the trek.
Initially we had to walk through the fields for a short distance till we hit the base of the hillock. Once the ascent starts, the climb is pretty steep – almost at an angle of 45 degrees. I found myself tiring easily, having not done a trek for more than 3 months. The midday sun did not help at all as it beat down upon us relentlessly. We were completely dehydrated. Thanks to the surplus supply of water and oranges we carried, we survived. We made it to the top in about 2 hours. The view from the top was breathtaking. At the top, there was a small temple, a couple of huts and a pond of ice-cool water. On talking to one of the hut-dwellers at the top, we came to know that people grew ragi and domesticated goats, cows and buffalo for a living here. He suggested that we should do this trek again such that we reach the top by evening and plan to spend the night there. He also told us that they were frequently visited by pachyderms from the neighbouring thickly forested regions during the rainy season. We decided that we were definitely coming back here at a better time. We relaxed under the cool shade of a huge rock till the sun went down and then trekked our way back to the base village.
All in all, it was a good trek but a reality check for me to get my fitness standards up. We rounded off the day with Anki’s treat at Samarkhand. We filled our bellies to the brim and relaxed our tired legs. A saturday well spent.
A few pictures taken during the trek.
Really amazing pics…
Esp loved the one of the painted elephant on the rock…truly creative !
you know what, whenever i think of you now, there is a pic of brown and green mountains in my mind now
nice pics. try taking them in high colour, and do some post processing by increasing the contrast a little.
im being horribly general, but frame your pics well so that the subject is where the eyes go first.
like that painted rock…. snip out the trees, and fill the frame with just the rock, in high colour, and maybe some ‘daylight’ white balance or something. it’s brilliant enough to stand its own.
Ha ha… Thanks for the tips. But this is a simple down-to-earth P&S. I’m not even sure if it knows all those complicated stuff
But yeah i was too lazy to do post processing.
Ah that painted rock, don’t you think it appears as though the elephant is trying to uproot that tree?
hence i left that tree be there
even near ramnagaram, anjaneya moothi paint madidhare ! nin allige hogbekithu..kothi alwa
seriously-ur writin has improved
good keep it up 
oh u mean, nin moothi paint maadiddare.. will go see definitely
thanku
nice post dude! i linked it to my blog!
Nice post. May be you could cover Savanadurga and Shivagange too during this summer. Please make sure you start at around 10 from home, so that at exactly 12 noon you are about to begin the ascent