Antharagange Hills

This is one of the trips which we’d planned in advance and hence we managed to go as a big group! We went to Antharagange on the first Wednesday of November. This place is located very near to Kolar City which is more or less 70 Kilometers from Bangalore. One can simply drive down to Kolar by taking the Old Madras Road – NH4. You'll be passing via Hoskote 20 kilometers from Bangalore. The highway is still not completely laid out and 2-way traffic is merged into a single lane at some stretches. We were fifteen members in our group and we went on 2 Dios, 1 Activa and 5 motorbikes!

Once you’ve reached

Kolar, getting to the foot of the hills isn’t very hard. Just ask for directions to the Kolar city’s main Bus Stand and take a left turn before it. After the left turn, it is one curvaceous road for 6 kilometers which takes you to the entrance Arch of Antharagange. Plenty of parking space is available at this point. Being a group of 15 biking-enthusiasts, we kept stopping enroute to exchange bikes and click pictures. Hence our speed was relatively slow and we took around 3 hours to reach the place.

The lower region of the Antharagange Hills has dense greenery. A flight of steps, giving us good exercise for about 25 minutes takes us halfway up the hill, to the ancient Kashi Viweshwara Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The statue of a bull located beside the temple has mountain water flowing out of its mouth 365 days a year! This place has hordes of monkeys and they’re quite a menace. Therefore put away all polythene bags and food stuff inside your backpacks while going up the steps, otherwise they will definitely try to take away your edibles.

Behind the temple, lies a 2hour trek amidst the scattered boulders and thorny bushes. The mountain water can be seen flowing at only one point while trekking. The peak of the hills gives us a scenic view of the villages lying in the Kolar District. Habitual trekkers should find Antharagange Trek slightly easy. You should find the cave

s of Antharagange Hills once you’re at the peak. We saved the inside tour of the caves for our next visit as we were short of time.

We stopped for lunch at one of the road-side Dhabas on NH4 on our return journey. We were back in Bangalore by dusk.

Trekking in the night is also possible at Antharagange and one can camp out in the caves overnight! A trip to Antharagange should be definitely adventurous and thrilling, and do keep yourself plenty of time to visit all the caves!