#paraglyding

                  Yelagiri Hills, Tamilnadu is one of the hill stations in south India. The reason I decided to visit the hill station is because it is the nearest hill station where chance of paragliding is available. I got disappointed as there is no such availability of paragliding at present on the hill.   I found many articles and videos online regarding paragliding on the hill but I didn’t found any such availability. I think either paragliding was discontinued due to some issues or the facility was provided only by some organizations like adventure clubs on particular days. In future if u wants to go for paragliding then I suggest you to contact any adventure clubs rather than searching online.

                 Nearest station to reach Yelagiri Hills through train is Jolarpettai Junction.  I went to Chennai and then to jolarpettai because of lack of availability of direct trains from my place on that day. You can find frequent trains from Chennai or Banglore to jolarpettai Junction which is around distance of 200 or 100 Kilo Meters.  I went in the first week of February 2017, as it was Sunday I can see some families on the hill,  I reached Jolarpettai Junciton around 7 O’ Clock in the evening.  From Railway station it is around 20 KMs which you should travel by road.  The best thing about Jolarpettai station is you can find hotels/lodges immediately as you come to main road. As the station is located out of town you cannot find luxury hotels near to railway station. If you want luxury hotels  you should go to Tirupattur which is around 10 kms from Jolarpettai station.  But as for who don’t need best hotels you can prefer hotels near  to railway station as they were not that bad. If u comes to main road you can find the Government Transport. As the Autos charge around 400  for one way up to hill I suggest to wait for Government Buses every 1 hour and cost is around 20 - 30 Rs. It will take around 45 mins to 1 hour to reach the top of the hill. The first bus will be early morning 4:30 to 5:00 and then after 1 hour. But you cannot guarantee the exact timing, in my case as I missed the first bus I had to wait till 8 O’clock as the bus was late which supposed to come around 6:30.  There will be no separate Bus stop or Bus stand. If you come out of railway station immediately you can see a place where autos are available, that is the place you should board the bus.

The hotel which I stayed was exactly opposite to Station Road and cost was 600 for two persons. The next day I  reached the top of the hill by bus around 9 in the morning.   Coming to the places on the hill, there are not worth watching when compared to other hill stations like Araku, Munnar, and Coorg. There are hotels available on the hill station which was very good compared to hotels near railway station.  My suggestion for those who are visiting any hill station is to stay on top of hill and spend a night so that you can actually experience the night and early morning climate. Here as there are no such worth watching places it will be satisfying if you  at least spend a night on the hill.

The places you can see are flower garden, nature park, Boat House, Water falls in rainy season, and adventure activities.  As I came for adventure activities I decided to spend time completely on adventure games available. You can even go for trek with your gang to a temple situated on small hill. But to reach that temple area you need to go around 10 kms from the actual hill station main road. You can find many residential houses available on the hill. You can even find Resorts for luxurious activities.

I visited all the outlets which offer adventurous games. You can find all the boarding on the hill showing various adventurous games available with them.  Luckily we found a shop where we took gear cycles for rent (50/hour/cycle). Because I am new to cycling so we enjoyed a lot with the new experience. It became easy for us as the hill has ups and downs. Ropes and Knots, Thrill valley, Mountain View Adventure Park are the main outlets where you can find various activities. I visited two of them except thrill Valley. My best advice for you is to avoid Ropes and Knots as there is no such activity which can impress you. Mountain View Park was nice with some thrilling activities such as sling shot which I tried for first time and some other activities which were better when compared to other outlets as this park was very spacious.   As expected by me the cost of the activities available is very high when compared to the duration of the activity.  We almost spent entire time in searching for other adventures activities and evening also we returned by local bus transport.