May 1, 2011

Nargund Fort

After a hectic day exploring hills and forts, we got to a chance to catch up with much needed rest during the ride between Sureban and -Nargund. We could see fields sunflower crop with few days remaining for harvest. About 3 km from Sureban, we saw a board pointing to the right- Shabari Devastana. Shabari temple is situated in the cleft of the sandstone hill. Also, we could see a small temple on a hill. Steps leading up to to the temple were clearly visible. Neel, Chetan and I planned to visit that temple some other day. Neel remarked this was the first time he's ever come across Shabari temple - same for me too. We stopped on and off making sure about the road to Nargund. Shrikanth is reliable in those matters.

After a while Nargund hill came into view, towering windmills on it. I was planning to go to Nargund, have snacks and then climb Nargund hill but Shrikanth had a different plan. Just before Nargund, we could see the dirt road leading to the hill top. The road ran parallel to an irrigation canal, we were tempted to stop and get a wash. We can do that later, we went up. Chetan kept telling there's no fort to be seen. Windmills dominated the skyline.

At the top, we found a sleepy character sitting in front of a small house belonging to the windmill company operating here. We asked him directions for the fort, he looked surprised ...fort!? Forget it, we'll explore and find out.

We found few ruins here and there. This probably was a flag bastion or a granary.


A well, similar to the ones we saw at Subapur fort earlier today.


Remains of a fort wall. I took a few steps on it, it was scary. I was worried of stones coming loose.


Same wall from a different angle. That's the only wall we could see. One of the windmills was pretty close by. I wonder if the fort was demolished to make space for business.


I was disappointed. Anyway, a least I got to see few remaining ruins of Nargund fort.


We drove back down, stopped by irrigation canal and got a proper wash. I filled a bottle and poured water over my head, two times. We had dosas at a restaurant and decided to get going. However I wanted to take pictures of the hill.


If you look at these two pictures, close to the center, you can see a cave like structure. I've not heard anyone mentioning a cave in Nargund hill.



Shrikanth drove into the bus-stand to get this view.


Some portion of the fort can be seen in these pictures.


Done with Nargund fort. We visited five forts- Subapur, Munvalli, Torgal, Ramdurg and Nargund -in one day.

One last destination was left for the day- Nagalingajja Mutta at Navalgund. The mutta is popular for a book with a hole through it, the hole is closing by itself. The coin-sized hole has gradually closing. Presently the hole is about 4mm diameter, 80 to 90 pages deep. The book has about ___ pages. The mysterious and holy book is shown only on ____days. Amazing, isn't?
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2 comments:

Sridharan said...

Interesting!

Unknown said...

can we use one of the photo of Nargund fort for museum