Yercaud

Rajeshwari Temple: This is on the way to Shevaroyan Temple.

Pagoda point: At circle, take right and then immediate left. Drive for 4.5 kms by following the sign boards to reach the point.

Lady’s seat/Gents seat and Children’s seat:
Take right at the first sight of the lake while entering Yercaud. Drive for a km to reach a T junction. Take right here and follow the sign boards to reach Lady’s seat. Salem town can be seen from this view point.
The hairpin bends leading to Yercaud is also visible. Gents and Childrens seat is just another view point at walking distance from Lady’s seat.

Lake: This is the center of all activities in the town. There is also a park (Anna Park) next to the lake. One thing that I noticed is that in all hill stations of Tamilnadu (Ooty, Kodaikanal, Yelagiri and Yercaud), lake forms the center of all tourist activity with a small park next to it!!

Loop road:
Second day morning started off with a drive on the loop road. This is a place which is figured in the tourist map of Yercaud. It is a 32 km road which starts and ends at the lake passing though the country side of Yercaud with nice Coffee plantations and forests. It was traced by an Englishman Mr. Surgeon in 1824. To go to the loop road, take the road to Shevaroyan Temple. At Y junction, the road to the right goes to Shevaroyan Temple while the left road is the loop road and passes through the villages of Nagalur, Semmanatham, Kaveri Peak and Majakuttai.

The return journey:
After loop road, we decided to return back. But the Police guys at check post did not allow taking the ghat road. Instead, they asked to go via Kuppanur. It took some time to find the route to Kuppanur. This ghat road was very narrow but not many vehicles were moving on this road. I took an hour to reach Kuppanur from Yercaud. Here I was at a junction where one road went to Salem and other to some other town. It looked like I have to enter the Salem city to join the main highway to Bengaluru, which I did not like. One village guy asked to take the other road which joins to Dharmapuri. It was a State Highway and I was bit apprehensive about the state of the road. But he assured me saying “Road nalla irukku”. The road was really fantastic with very less vehicles on the route. But then after covering some distance, I had to take diversion for Dharmapuri. It was a village road and all sign boards were in Tamil which meant that at every junction I had to ask villagers for the correct route. That was not an issue as the people were very friendly and always eager to help. Even the village roads here were excellent. Without any issues we reached Dharmapuri and from then it was all NH-7 till Bengaluru. Heavy rains and traffic jams welcomed us as we entered Bengaluru.

For my daughter, this was the first time she moved outside Bengaluru. I would say that she enjoyed the journey and was happy all the way.

Yercaud is a place for people who would like to lazy out for a day or two. Though this place is not commercialized, mining activities are rampant. While climbing ghat road and near Shevaroyan Temple, you can large part of the forests destroyed by mines. These days, my blood boils whenever I see or hear about mining. In Karnataka, they have caused widespread destruction of forests. The trucks carrying mines have caused havoc in all the highways. Most of the highways in Karnataka are in bad shape because of these b*@#*$^@s. The entire state is paying heavily to make a dozen people billionaires.
More photos of the trip can be viewed here.