Kolli Malai or Kolli Hills is a rustic picture-perfect hill station located in the Namakkal district of central Tamil Nadu. Since, Kolli Malai is about 1300m above MSL, the weather is very pleasant round the year.
I visited this place last weekend as part of my weekend getaway plans. Seven of us on five motorcycles went here to enjoy the mountain ride and to have a relaxed weekend experience.
Kolli Hills is about 290 kms from Bangalore. The route we took was Bangalore –> Hosur –> Krishnagiri –> Dharmapuri –> Salem –> Rasipuram –> Kalapanaikkampetty (on the Sendamangalam road) –> Kolli Hills.
We had four lane highways till a little beyond Salem on the Trichy highway. Then, we turned left towards Rasipuram from where we turned right towards the new bus stand and then a second right towards Sendamangalam. At Kalapannaikkampetty enroute to Sendamangalam, we turned left towards Kolli Hills.
The roads were pretty decent except for some slightly bad stretches as we hit the hairpin bends. The 70 hairpin bends, which are spread across a little more than fifteen kilometres are nearly continuous and it is indeed a pleasure to ride a motorcycle on these winding roads.
Though it was quite warm at Rasipuram, the temperatures started dropping as we steadily climbed the winding roads of the Eastern Ghats. At certain junctures on these hairpin roads, shoulders have been provided where one can park their vehicles and enjoy the panoramic views of the plains below.
Unfortunately for us, we hardly got to see any view as it was a cloudy and misty. But, no one complained as the monsoon ride through these 70 continuous hairpin bends was simply liberating and a mind numbing experience for the motorcycling lovers in all of us.
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