A 2 year wish fulfilled 🙂
It was almost 2 years ago since I ventured into Pine forest in ECR before Mahabalipuram. Since that time, I wanted to explore the same mini forest @ night.
I am all fine with Cycling alone in Moonlight in ECR. Actually I find that very very beautiful rather than scary. But venturing into Forest at night is something else. I am very far away from that.
Posted this idea of Night forest exploration in our own `Cycling Squad` whatsapp group and immediately got positive responses. The comrades joined in, data/time was fixed and we accomplished this great mission.
Route Up:
- Saidapet
- Madhya kailash
- Shollinganallur
- Akkarai
- Kovalam
- Savukku thoppu (FOREST)
Route Down:
- Savukku thoppu (FOREST)
- Kovalam
- Kelambakkam
- Madhya Kailash
- Saidapet.
KM’s covered:
84km.
Squad members:
- Arun Prasad
- Hari Babu.
- Ponmurugan
- Saiyasodharan
- Subbaiah
- Surya Prasad
Adventure:
We parked our Cycles safely between the trees at the edge of Forest. Took a snap and briefed ourselves on Do’s and Dont’s.
Then we started walking in the forest with Haribabu leading and Surya trailing us. We walked through possible available pathways, jumping the broken woods and crawling below high branches, taking U-turns on dead ends. It was the full moon that added true beauty to the whole adventure. Otherwise it’s not very scary as we expected. No. It’s no way near to `The Blair Witch Project`. Maybe we set our expectations of Horror and Scariness so high that we all felt little disappointed. Maybe, I should try this alone next time 😛
After struggled sometime to find a route to Beach. After half a dozen U-turns, we atlast found a way to Beach. And this is when the unexpected real adventure started!
Real Adventure:
We were near to Beach and crossing a broken wall is built nearby the shores, when a super intense light beam hit us and we all immediately ran behind the wall the next second. It’s the police. High beam torches are their properties. They are like atleast 500m away from us and we decided to get back into forest till they clear the place.
But Pon Murugan was not moving. One of his slipper slipped in front of the broken wall. They police were beaming their lights exactly at our place,
- so we can’t get ahead of wall to get the slipper.
- Nor we could get into forest. Thorns will tear his legs.
Myself and Pon murugan planned to wait out and see what happens, while other retreated back into forest. One of our DONT’s is not to get scattered, no matter what, but it just happened!
The Police lights were slowly nearing us and we were waiting out. We decided to speak to Police and tell our situation on interrogation. But the problem is, we wont be allowed to stay in beach after that. But guess we got not much options at hand. Then suddenly someone from back crawled towards our side. I was seriously shocked for a minute and then realized it’s Haribabu. We 3 waited there for 5 mins. Then the police came straight ahead of us near the shore. But they didn’t came close to wall and crossed us and walked away. Hell yeah! Gathering at beach and swift return: Then we all gathered at beach, had our snacks / fruits, spent like an hour there. Nothing beats the sight of the mighty Sea glittering in the moonlight. Just this sight is worth all the trouble!
Then we started our return. After Kovalam, Haribabu’s cycle got punctured. We managed by Towing it and pedalling doubles, taking turn. Then another surprising incident is we found a Snake in OMR @ Sholinganallur. We took a video of it and then we all returned home around 5 to 6 AM.
New friend
While going, we met a 47 year old youngster, who works as an operator of a mobile crane. Just like us, he just wants to travel in cycle for long distance and he started his journey from Mogappair and travelling to Mahabalipuram. He joined our gang for a short distance and it was a good time with him, hearing bunch of scary stories!
Overall, It’s a great Night spent. Looking forward for the next Adventure.
