Place: Medigeshi Fort Trek
Distance: 150kms x 2 = 300kms
Directions: Bangalore > Dobbaspete > Madhugiri > Medigeshi
Krew: Madhu (Simha) > Karthik (Sippy)
Bikes: Xpulse 200
Previous Visit: Kabbaladurga trek.
Budget: Rs 615/head
IN LESS THAN 50 WORDS:
When a trip starts with a good tea and breakfast, you know it will be good! Yeah, this was one such trip where everything fell into the right slots and all we had to do was keep moving. Medigeshi is a small town situated on the Karnataka-Andhra border.
INTRO & PLAN:
Okay, with 2024 rolling out well, and the treks flowing in smooth, decided next up would be Medigeshi. Madhu and myself had visited Ratnagiri last month, so Medigeshi was a slight tougher trek than Ratnagiri, hence the choice of place.
TIME: 15:00 (27/6/2024)
ASSEMBLE & LEAVE:
Yes, I was up by 3:30am, stretched out a bit, had a sip of coffee and was all set to go. Madhu has a 25km ride to my place through the city. He reached my home by 5:45 and left the town with clouds hanging low down in the skies.
TIME: 06:00
RIDE 1: (Bangalore – Dobbaspete – Madhugiri – Medigeshi)
This was a 135km ride, I would say it was one of best this year so far. We made it out of the city limits at a slow pace. But once we hit NH-4 we picked up speed, once we reached Dobbaspete, we took left deviation towards Madhugiri and had a tea. The tea shot some fresh energy into us, it was so good. After thanking the person we continued our journey.
A lot of hillocks flood this place, and all the top of the hillocks were covered with clouds. It was something magical. The skies felt heavy, and the temperature was cool and the whole air was gloomy. It was almost like, If I could prick the clouds with a pin, then a downpour was given. This made the ride extra special. We cruised along smooth and we decided to pull over at our regular place about 10-12km from Dobbaspete for some yummy double round breakfast.
TIME: 07:15
With our tummies full, and the weather superb we cruised along at a decent pace absorbing the cool ambiance that was offered to us to reach Madhugiri. From Madhugiri, Medigeshi is about 25-30km on butter-smooth roads.
TIME: 09:00
MEDIGESHI FORT TREK:
It took us about 45 minutes to reach the top. The trek as such is not so difficult, but there are a lot of instances one can lose their way. But hey, this is what makes it fun right? Even after visiting this place 4 times, the last time we visited we had lost our way.
i) Initial forest– 10 to 15mins
ii) Rock Face – 10 to 15 mins
iii) Final gates – 10 to 15mins
i) Initial Forest:
The trek begins with a walk through the forest. One gets a feeling of walking into an ancient kingdom in ruins. This stretch is easy and enjoyable. The lush green forests and the sounds of the chirping birds lifted our energies and we took it all in with a happy smile.
ii) Rock face:
Once out of the forest, we found ourselves on pure rock face. With the entire town of Medigeshi behind us, we started ascending the rock in a slow and composed manner. We could spot a lot of buildings in ruins, pillars fallen, fort walls torn down, must have been a bad invasion.
iii) Final gates:
Last phase of this trek is to go figure out and go through a couple of more gateways. But to get to the gateway we had to climb up a steep face of rock. Now, we had two options, take the steps or climb up free style. We chose the later as it would be more fun. So we studied the rock face and plotted a route up that would join back the steps just below the entrance of the 4th gate.
And boy, was the climb fun. It is these moments in which you are forced not to think other than your next step. Simply a beautiful climb, few places it turned risky, but that is what makes climbing fun. After joining back the route, it was a peaceful walk to reach the top and spot the iconic building of Medigeshi constructed in Indo-Islamic style.
TIME: 09:45
TOP:
We spent about an hour at the top. We skipped the main building and directly ventured towards the spooky tree behind. To our surprise, the spooky tree was all alive and was sporting green leaves for the first time. In all our previous visits we had seen only a skeletal structure. But the place was seriously spooky this time, with no one around, and under the tree was dark and scary. And over all this, we found a nice stone bench in a corner.
We sat on the stone and relaxed having some water. Madhu pulled out a notebook and started drawing some amazing sketches. I played blackjack for a while and then slept off. As we stopped talking, the silence set in. Then trust me, we started hearing sounds. The whole place came alive from all sides. Insects chirping, wind blowing, it was beautiful and scary at the same time. We enjoyed nature talking to us in its purest way, but we also realized we weren’t fully prepared to have a full-fledged conversation. Once we both started speaking, it was like a veil disappearing from all sides of us, sounds receding, and suddenly the place went silent. We decided it was time to hit back, as we spotted some clouds coming from afar right towards us.
TIME: 10:45
DESCENT:
The descent was quite straightforward. We took no breaks in between, oh yea we didn’t on the way top as well. The descent took us about 25 minutes. We visited the building and spent few minutes there and from then on it was straight down.
There were a lot of instances where we lost our way, that is common, but we knew we had to just keep going down. And things fell in place, we found pathways back recollected few landmarks and made it back down.
TIME: 11:30
RIDE 2: (Medigeshi – Madhugiri – Dobbaspete - Bangalore)
The ride back was on again the butter-smooth roads. This time I thought I would give a shot riding the X-pulse and boy was it fun riding it. Cruising at a decent pace of 70-80kmph, we cut through the well-laid smooth highway to reach Madhugiri. Here we had a “sting” off late it had become a custom to have one after a trek. Then we reached Dobbaspete, took a short break, and then reached our regular “Whity Dhaba” for some light lunch and drink. We spent about 2 hours at the Dhaba, relaxing, and then rode back to reach our homes.
TIME: 16:00
CONCLUSION:
“Excellent tea to kick start things, a yummy breakfast to set our energies, a great ride with captivating views all around to take us to our destination, then the whole process of the trek was relishing, then the butter smooth ride back – a day well spent! “
Until next time Cia \m/
