September 15, 2012
After exploring Kutkankeri hills, we stopped for lunch. Malatesh was exhausted, Suryadeva's effect. He slept off while Raju and I had lunch. When we were done, I woke Malatesh and forced and him to have little curd-rice... he agreed it felt better. Next on the itinerary were Guldegudda, Amingad and Aihole. I wan't sure about Guledgudda having a fort but I wanted to confirm.
Guledgudda is a small town at the base of a hill range. We could not see any ruins from the road. We inquired with local folks- no, there's no fort on the hill. However at one end of the hill range there was a bastion like structure which happened to be a temple. It would have good if I had climbed the hill to confirm but time and energy was in question. Well, if there was a fort, some on would have told it.. let's move on to Amingad.
Amingad is also a small town at the base of a hill range. The highway connecting Bagalkot to Kudala Sangama passes through Amingad. We could see ruins of the fort from the outskirts, now the question is where's the easiest path to climb the hill.
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| Google Map screen shot of Amingad town, hill & fort. |
We took a narrow street running parallel to the hill, stopped by for a minute at Basaveswara temple. The temple shikhara is decorated with lot of sculptures. People were very curious to see two people shooting their temple. We asked for directions to the path leading to the fort; the path starts at the end of this hill, near the highway.
An ancient gateway in the same lane.
Finally we locate the path, passing through another narrow steep lane with small huts and houses. After a foot bridge across a trench, we were treading a steep dirt path flanked by Jaaligida jungle. At one point the dirt path gave way to a stairway. The steps were made of rough cut sandstone slabs.. we were struggling.. to make things easy we spoke jokingly about shifting to lower gears :)
These hills are a good source of stones for construction. Finally we reached the bastion. There was a small temple next to the bastion. We did not bother going in.
This level of the hill was windy and on the bastion wind was literally pushing us. We avoided going near the edges. This is what remains of a rampart wall, its completely collapsed.
Ruins of two bastions.
At the summit is a bigger structure, perhaps that was the fort's command point. What seems like a stairway from here is actually a wall.
This fort is in complete ruins. We decided to have a visual tour rather than climb up to the top. Descending was also tricky.. again we shifted to high gear and used special brakes to control speed :)
Bye Amingad. We took the road to Aihole, a 8 km drive.
Amingad fort Coordinates: 16°3'36"N 75°57'4"E
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