Fort Kardidurga

March 6, 2013
Kardidurga as seen from Uchangidurga, at a straight  line distance of two kilometers in southwesterly direction. Road distance is about 4½ kms. The name Kardidurga is made of two words Kardi + Durga ~ bear + fort.

We drove right up to Kardidurga village situated at the base of the hill, Ravi chose to stay back in the car. Malatesh and I climbed the not so steep gradient but it was pretty rough. The hill had a feel of a prehistoric site. We followed the foot path.. seems like the hill has regular traffic.

We reached the fort entrance in less than 15 minutes. Though the terrain was dry, we did see one interesting looking flower (see inset).

Fort entrance as seen from inside. Close to the entrance are two Neem trees and a temple. The place had a nice ambiance.

That's the temple; small and tidy. There were half a dozen men discussing some village matter.

Lord Hanuman, the temple deity and a Kannada inscription within the temple. It realized much later that I could have asked the poojari to move the bench before taking the picture of the Lord. The copper colored sculpture is beautiful, isn't it? Notice the Shankha and Chakra close to the head -  this seems to be a unique idol because of the presence of Vishnu's symbols.

The spoke to the men about the purpose of our visit and stepped out of the temple, to explore the fort. It has only one round of wall, with seven bastions on the perimeter. The walls are not very high, perhaps twenty feet at the maximum.

The damage seen here might have occurred in the last 50 to 60 years. Weather was hostile, it was blistering, even our sweat would evaporate in minutes.

At the center, just behind the temple is a tower - which is damaged badly. Many of the damages seem intentional, perhaps work of treasure hunters. Within the fort were houses, probably belonging to one big family who owned lands around the hill.

We went along the fort perimeter, checking out different types of structures- tower, bastions, houses, and then the circular structures marked in black ovals whose purpose we could not guess.

That's Uchangidurga, we were on that hill an hour ago.

These houses remind me of few forts in Bagalkot district such as Akkargal and Guledgudda. Here we can see two types of walls; 1. built entirely of stones and 2. mud used as a binding material

One more type of structure was a stone wall forming a 6' tall cylinder, we could count eight such cylinders in various levels of damages, grouped together closely. They seemed like granaries - I'm not sure.

The fort interior was quite packed, however something was missing. Guess what? Source of water. So many homes and no water?

Well, the water tank is at a lower level. Notice a ring of wall around the lower level, that would have been built to protect the water tank, I guess.

Though hungry and tired, we decided to check out the water tank before descending the hill. The spot was well suited for a picnic. I was tempted to call Ravi and ask him to fetch the lunch bag but then I felt it would be too much load for on person. The spot under the Neem tree was perfect for having lunch.

One last look at the fort before we head down to the cab. Lovely place!

Do check out the video by Malatesh.

Back in the cab, we took out cucumbers, washed them and started munching.. aah what a feeling after being roasted in the Sun. Within the next 15 minutes we found a silent spot close to Uchangidurga. We had our lunch of jolada rotti, salad, greens, sprouts and curds. While on trips, yeli-adkee is a must :-)

We got directions for Uchangipura ~ Hosadurga and resumed our journey.

Karadidurga coordinates: 14°32'51"N   76°2'19"E
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