Whenever I travelled
on the Tumkur Road I always used to wonder at a Rocky Mountain on
the left side found soon after Dobbaspet. Being a Nature lover I
had always thought "When will I visit this beautiful rocks" After
sometime I read a write up saying that there is indeed a fort built
on this hillock by an ancient ruler of Tumkur Dist. "RAMARASA NAYAKA"
of Nijigal and this fort was called Nijigal Fort.
Nijigal is located about 60 kms from Bangalore on the NH 4 which
connects Bangalore with Pune. There are many exotic places worth
a visit surrounding this place, viz., Shivaganga hills, Siddaganga
Mutt and hills, Tumkur, Devarayanadurga hills and many more similar
hilly places. These places are a Rock Climbers Paradise, A Piligrims
Salvation, A picnic spot for the ordinary tourist.
The uniqueness of this fort is that it not visible at all from the
road or from the plains. Only when you start climbing the steep
incline towards the top of the hillock, will you find the ramparts
and walls of the fort. This feature might have been highly advantageous
during wars in the olden days.
 I
mentioned about this place to a few friends of mine Shiv Kumar,
Deepak and Ashok were also enthusiastic to explore this unique fort.
So we all decided to bike it up to the base of the fort where lies
the HaleNijigal Village leave our bikes and then trek up the hills
to the fort.
We reached Hale Nijigal village around 10 am in the morning and
after speaking to the villagers for a few minutes we started towards
the fort. To our surprise we found that this Nijigal is actually
consisting of two hillocks one on the back side and one which is
seen to the road. We started tackling the smaller one which is not
at all visible from the Road. One has to travel at least 2kms away
from the National Highway to view this place. We soon reached the
foot of the mountains and started our ascent. We were lucky to catch
a glimpse of a Mongoose, few large (really large) Chameleons and
some birds.
The first leg of the mountain ended at an ancient Veerabhadreswara
temple which is built inside a cave. The cave is so huge, I guess
at least 200 people can sit comfortably. There were signs of cooking
and camping here, so I guess that we were not the only visitors
to this place. On further exploration we discovered many more things,
some of which were ancient and some were recently built, some naturally
formed and some man made.
 One
such feature is a naturally formed water tank. The tank seemed as
though it has never been used in the past couple of 100 years. The
water was totally covered with algae and looked bright green. This
is a tank which has been formed naturally and rain water gets collected
there regularly.
There was another way leading upwards towards the top of the mountain.
After getting a closer look at the water point we proceeded in the
cave passage towards the top of the mountain. After about a couple
of hundred meters we found a small temple of Nandi the official
vehicle of Lord Shiva (One of the important Hindu Gods). We rested
for sometime and checked our route towards the top of the hill.
For all practical purposes it seemed that we had reached the end
point as there was no beaten path towards the top. Hence we decided
to make our own route and climb the hill.
We started scrambling up the slope with Shiv Kumar in the lead.
In many a places we had to help each other climb the steep and slippery
rocky slopes.
After about an hours climb Deepak got stuck in a place from where
he couldn't climb up and we were feeling dicey about climbing down
to help him up. I was too far up and Ashok was almost near me and
Shiv was in the centre of the slope. Deepak was just not feeling
up to it to climb alone. So we decided to just sit there and take
some rest while the enormity of the situation dawned upon us.
After sometime Deepak made up his mind and somehow climbed to where
Shiv was sitting and from then on Shiv coaxed him ahead to reach
the place where I was. We had almost reached the top of the hill
with just one more short steep climb to go.
After this climb we traversed to the right and turned and were caught
unawares by the awesome presence of the Main Nijigal hill. The top
of the small hillock was covered by thick scrub jungle mainly containing
Lantana and other thorny bushes. Our garments got stuck in the thorns
innumerable times and Deepak who was wearing real loose fitting
shirt was the worst hit. He had to stop at many places to free his
shirt and then move ahead.
It was already 4pm by then and we were all hungry as wolves and
it was time for us to start our return journey. It is very risky
to travel by night in two wheelers on the National Highway. At the
top of the hill we stopped for rest and had a drink of water and
enjoyed the surroundings, taking in the beauty of the main Nijigal
hill promising ourselves that we will return and climb the main
hill.
Joyride by: Srinidhi Raghavendra
City: Bangalore
State: Karnataka
E-mail: srinidhilv@hotmail.com
Go for more bike adventures with Srinidhi at - http://www.ultimate-adventure.com
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