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Ride 4 - Point Calimere

After our first long ride to Horsley Hills turning out to be an awesome one, we couldn’t wait to get back on the saddles. So the very next month, we worked out a plan to check out yet another place that hasn’t been exploited and that’s how we found Point Calimere. It was once again an interesting mix of Classics, Thunderbirds, and Himalayans.

Itinerary


It wasn’t one of our usual A to B rides. We once again started from Velavan Motors Alwartirunagar branch but instead of going straight to our destination, we halted at Velankanni owing to not so great accommodation options at Point Calimere. We also made it a point to go through the famous Puthur Jayaram Mess so that our lunch gets sorted too.

Kms covered

My odometer which stood at 4109 when I started from Chennai was at 4915 when I got back. So that’s a total of 806 kms.

What’s new

With the top of my body secured with jacket, gloves, and helmet, it was high time I got something to cover the other half. Instead of getting a riding trouser, I wanted to give knee guards a shot. Thanks to advices from many, I zeroed on the Aspida Bionic External Knee Guard – a lovely piece of armour that gets the job done without compromising on the looks.

What actually happened…

After starting early in the morning as always, we reached Puthur which happened to be our lunch stop. The hotel here – Puthur Jayaram Mess as it’s called – is one of those gems that you shouldn’t be missing if you’re travelling through this area. That is, if you’re fan of non-vegetarian food and you love seafood. For more details on this place, click here.

Though we’ve gone on our fair share of rides, this one stays memorable thanks to an interesting incident that happened en route to Velankanni. While almost reaching Velankanni, we stopped at a junction to make sure everyone are on track. That’s when a cop (in mufty, riding a scooty that said POLICE). He stopped us and asked us where we’re coming from and where we’re heading to. We gave him all the details and when he asked for license, a friend even showed it. That’s when the guy pulled out his phone and tried taking a picture of the license. I stepped in and said he can’t do that before getting back the license from his hands. He got offended and called up his higher officials. Looking at the helmet mounted GoPros, on the phone, he said we were “surveying the topography”. We assume the official had better understanding of what we’re doing so this guy couldn’t do much. He tried ‘warning’ us that we’ll be caught at the next check post by cops which we laughed off and rode away. Of course, we weren’t stopped anywhere.


The evening we reached Velankanni, we got to check out the beach as well as the famous church. The marketplace surrounding the church is a must go and the different types of halwas (a chewy nougat kinda sweet) made in different colours is a treat both to the eyes and tongue.

We wanted to watch the sunrise at Point Calimere which is one of the best spots to do it after Kanyakumari. And boy, we weren’t disappointed. The Southernmost point was more of a beach similar to that of a salt lake making riding on it a pleasure. The coastal line is also flooded with fishermen and at 5ish in the morning, it was a quite a sight to watch!

 

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