Horsley Hills - Road Trip from Bangalore

 Horsley Hills is a small hill station in Andhra Pradesh, near to Bangalore. Its ideal for a day trip or a weekend trip. Sometime back I accompanied my friends on a small road trip to this place.

Road to Horsley Hills

From the Old Madras Road ( A National Highway) we took a State Highway towards Chintamani. This was a road which was pretty decent at stretches , but bad to terrible for several kilo meters.
The countryside is pretty dry and the hills are mostly devoid of trees. But there were some places nice enough to stop and take rest on the way.

Chintamani State Highway

The topology changed from dry to arid at places and it was a different sight altogether.

Road to Horsley Hills

This must be long walk for a villager  on these roads. 

Villagers on the Road

Nearby to Horsley Hills , it was more pleasant weather, but still it was too hot for a winter day. 

Beautiful Road to Horsley

Finally we reached the top of Horsley Hills after crossing some areas that provided great panoramic views.

Ooty of Andhra

As we reached the place we realized that it was not only crowded , but it was overflowing. The APTDC hotel was serving some decent buffet, and people spread out to the gardens to have the food as there was no place inside the restaurant.
I walked around the place, seemed to be nice place for kids if it was not so crowded. The biggest attraction to me was the grand old Eucalyptus Tree ( from 1859 it said) . That was really amazing.

Apart from that the zoo was falling apart ,gardens, nature trails and view points maybe enchanting on a less crowded and rainy day. However the APTDC hotel seemed to be nice.

After spending some time loitering around the place we decided to return using a different route this time via Punganur.