As me and my friends were
searching for a weekend getaway, we got to know about the Kolli Hills near
Thoraiyur, Trichy district at an altitude of 1300m. Trekking to the top of
these hills is one of the hardest treks in India taking a minimum of 5 hours at
a single stretch. These are not normal tourist destinations were the trek path will
be clearly defined, you have got to find your own path which is manageable to some
extent. After searching through the internet we were not able to find any
useful information regarding the trek just some village names in the area above
the hills. This thing triggered us to go for the trek as we can be the first
few to complete the trek. So we a group of four decided to start on a Saturday
morning at 6:30 am from Trichy Chattiram Busstand as buses to Puliyancholai,
foothills of Kolli, would start only at 7:15am. The plan was to reach the Agayagangai
falls by 4:00pm or before as it closes after that and start back to Trichy from
buses at top through the Namakkal way. We boarded the bus to Thoraiyur as
planned but reached only at 7:30 so we missed the bus to Puliyancholai and the
next bus arrives only at 9:00am. So we had breakfast there at the bus stand as
there are no restaurants at Puliyancholai and only petty shops as stated by the
locals. After breakfast we hired an auto and reached Puliyancholai by 9:00am.
Puliyancholai is a picturesque location where the Aiyaru stream flows, starting
from the Kolli hills to the nearby villages for farming needs. We went in the
month of November post monsoon showers so the level of water was quite normal. The
stream is full of boulders and stones which is said was brought by the stream
as it falls through the hills. Anyways it was quite awesome to walk through the
stream jumping between the stones, as there are only few places in south where
we could experience this.
We started walking along the
stream, crossing the stream through the stones somewhere in the middle to get
to a better ground. After walking around for 5 kms we could see that the level
of water was increasing steadily throughout. At the point of entering the hills
we had to walk through the stream for half a kilometre as there were no stones
to jump through and had water at waist level which went upto neck level and
reduced thereafter near the border. We had to be careful there as the flow was
strong and could have towered over us. Once we felt the land we started to increase
pace to makeup for the time consumed in crossing the stream. The path was fit
only for one to walk at a time with trees and bushes on either side of the
path. You could not see beyond ten steps both front and back so it was needed to
maintain the pace equally by everyone. Then we reached a place at around
12:00pm where another stream would have joined the previous one if it had water.
We had a dilemma whether to go through the path of the other stream or to go
perpendicular to the stream through the hills which was solved by google maps. One
more thing, there was no mobile signal for any of the operators better to
download the offline maps. One of the villages name we found earlier was Vallappur
Nadu which was in the perpendicular route through the hills. We decide to take
a break now for 10 minutes. We had only four bottles of water and some four
packets of biscuit that’s all. From there onwards it was only uphill which will
be very difficult with limited refreshments and no sunlight was falling on the
path, it was feeling like evening. So we decided to have a limit on the
refreshments we had.
We started through the hills shortly
taking a break of 5 mins for every 20 mins walking as the paths were getting
steeper and each leading the pack alternatively. At around 1:45pm we were in a
region where there were fallen trees and no more place to walk but we could see
some path at a distance but not sure. We tried to go through the trees but it
was getting more risky as were standing in a very steep place and nothing to
hold on as all were thorny trees around us. Then with a heavy heart we decided
to retrace the steps incase if we missed any but was not very sure of the
results. As we came back, to our great relief we found a path which was going
in a different direction. Since it was very much smaller than the path we
followed we missed this. The time was around 2:30pm and we still had to go
halfway. We increased the pace and reduced the break time significantly due to
time and the amount of refreshments we had. As we were walking we were able to find some
direction signs which brought some relief to our faces. The path was getting
interesting once we had a few steps inbuilt in the hilly stones and once we
were walking along the edges where we could see the bottom easily which made
our hearts pump harder.
We took break at a rock which was like a view point where we
could see the stream flowing down and also the path we took which was
mesmerizing to see.
The time was around 3:30pm. We
started soon and after a few metres there was two ways infront of us. Luckily
at that time a local villager came to our rescue and guided us from there to
Arapaleeshwar Temple which was the top of the hill. We were walking in the
village roads soon after and filled our water bottles in his home and thanked for
the fortunes and started for the falls. Since it was plains we walked faster.
At around 4:30pm we reached the entrance of the falls which was closed as to reach
falls we have to climb down 500 steps. We pleaded with the authorities just to
see the falls from nearby and they allowed. By going down a few steps we got a
view of the falls and came back. Then we took a dip in the stream which was
flowing nearby. The water was ice cold literally and was so sweet. With this
amazing experience behind we took the bus to Namakkal. The hill route was
splendid with about 70 hairpin bends, hope to come on a bike ride soon. The weather
was same like Kodaikanal, so people can go for a weekend here to get a different
experience. If you have any queries please comment I will be ready to help. Below
is the link to this trek vlog. Share this information as much as possible so
that more people could know about the area rather than going for the same hill
stations in Tamil Nadu. See you next time with a different location.
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