Day 92: Hubli to Dandelli

Into the trees at last

As we approach the coast we’re starting to get into the Western Ghats, the forested hills of this region. It means more climbing, but we get a lot more shade.

Our morning surprise was another puncture on Blue Strawberry. That puts us into double figures and enough was enough, I changed both the tyres to new rubber. We’d been carrying spares since Sydney so it was time to make use of them.

The road out of Hubli was nice, lined with “pre-university” colleges- a big thing here. Tiger’s pre-university college is his bicycle. I don’t think they come better than that.

Soon we turned off the main road and headed into the countryside along a winding tree-lined road on which the kilometres seemed to fly by. We’d cracked off 30 km before we knew it and stopped for a break and a raisin and nut snack.

The road started to lose the fields and there were ever more trees around as we neared the Anshi Forest National Park.

Now we’ve reached our base for the night, a homestay in Dandelli. The family are lovely and we’ll be getting a home cooked meal tonight, which is a treat.

However, only 2G cellphone network here, so no pics.