CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
It goes by way of Eravikulam National Park, Mankulam Range and back through Eravikulam National Park. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 25 km this is Munnar Tea Country Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
It sits on the Thamirabarani river in the far south of Tamil Nadu, with its twin town of Palayamkottai across the water, a former garrison that earned the nickname Oxford of the South for its colleges and schools. The big Nellaiappar temple, with its musical stone pillars, anchors the old town, and the city's other claim to fame is halwa, a dense, glossy sweet of wheat, ghee and sugar that people carry home in boxes. The river water is said to be the secret.
Read the complete Tirunelveli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tirunelveli is where the day begins. Next is Eravikulam National Park.
Anamudi is the highest mountain in India south of the Himalaya, and it rises from the Eravikulam plateau like a dark tooth. The national park, in the high Western Ghats near Munnar in Kerala, protects a landscape of rolling grassland, thick shola forest in the folds of the hills, and open skies, at heights above two thousand metres. It forms part of the Western Ghats World Heritage Site, inscribed by UNESCO in 2012, and it is the best place in the world to see the Nilgiri tahr, a stocky wild goat that lives on steep, grassy slopes.
Read the complete Eravikulam National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eravikulam National Park comes up 68 km in. Next is Mankulam Range.
The Mankulam range lies in the high country of Idukki district in Kerala, in the Munnar uplands that form the highest part of the Western Ghats south of the Nilgiris. The mountains here are enormous, rolling green downs of grass dotted with dark patches of shola, the stunted evergreen forest that fills the folds between the ridges, and the entire landscape is part of a protected block that includes Anamudi, at 2,695 metres the highest peak in India south of the Himalaya. The Grass Hills National Park sits here, with its sweeping slopes and strange, windswept look.
Read the complete Mankulam Range write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
135 km in you reach Mankulam Range. Next is back through Eravikulam National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eravikulam National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Eravikulam National Park, late in the day. Next is Tirunelveli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tirunelveli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tirunelveli. That is the ride.
Tirunelveli → Eravikulam National Park is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Eravikulam National Park → Mankulam Range is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mankulam Range → back through Eravikulam National Park is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eravikulam National Park → Tirunelveli is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.