26th January in 2018 was another opportunity for our friends and us to repeat our trekking exercise from the past year. The process of planning was brief this year as we selected handigundi as a place for our trek.

The trekking guides on the Internet promised an easy trek and we had a full house this year with Shilpa joining the trek as well, which she could not make last year due to her Dubai trip.

We started at about 6.30 am, after having had a quick breakfast at home. The drive took us about an hour and half and we were near the trekking starting point at around 8 am. There was a brief period of confusion at the starting point of the trek, as the path is not clearly marked, however luckily we were joined by a couple of local boys who started on the upward journey along with us.

The funny thing about this was, we never asked the boys formally to guide us, they came towards us, guided us towards the path and then took the path themselves as if they took on the responsibility of guiding us through the path.

The trek is mainly through very dry territory, where the grass and shrubs is a bit thorny, but there were also some places where we had to walk across some solid rock faces, not steep or which need any equipment, but challenging enough to rise your breath and heart rate.

There is a point in the Ascent, where it appears as if, we are on the back of an elephant and proceeding to step onto its head. The trek offers a great view of the surrounding townships and also a railway track where you can watch trains chugging by..

As we reached the top we found there was an indian flag hoisted upon a pole, we spent about an hour relaxing at the top, eating some snacks and taking in the beautiful view. At the end, before we left, we decided to perform a service to the nation, by singing the national anthem, saluted the Indian flag and left downwards. The climb down was pretty fast and did not present many challenges. After we reached the base, we thanked the boys for their help and then moved to Kamat lokaruchi, as planned earlier to eat a well deserved north Karnataka thali. By the time we reached home, it was about 3 pm.

Our entire trip lasted about 9 hrs, the trek actually lasted about 4 hrs. It was a fantastic day out and everyone enjoyed themselves. We have now set a target for ourselves to intersperse a trek before the next 26th January, when we will definitely go on a trek again !!