When Adventure Calls

The Hyundai Venue N Line is a cool attention-grabber in urban conditions, but is it as cool when adventure calls? We find out as we take one on a drive to the mountains of Pithoragarh

A couple of pine needles fell on me, and considering it was 2am and I was in the middle of the forest that makes up the Askot Musk Deer Sanctuary, it was an unnerving experience, to say the least. The fact that I am not exactly the outdoorsy type didn't help either. Here I am, nevertheless, writing about an amazing three days spent driving around the magnificent Pithoragarh region of Uttarakhand, in torrential rain, with a few landslides and some camping thrown in.

Now, we've driven the Venue N Line thoroughly since it was launched, and we know it's a fun car to have as a road trip companion. When we set out for the next chapter of our ongoing Essence of Motoring series with Hyundai, the Venue N Line was our ride of choice. We wanted to explore a little-known area, and we wanted to do it not through the comfort of the usual resorts and mod-cons, but by camping out in the wild and driving around in areas that Google maps may not have seen.

The Venue N Line is an effortless SUV to drive in urban conditions, but we wanted to see how it would behave out on some long forgotten paths in the mountains. When we left Delhi, the capital city had had an early onset of the monsoon - for the first time in 62 years, Delhi and Mumbai welcomed the rain on the same date. The waterlogged streets and a city looking like a set for a dystopian movie were the background when we left early one morning, with Uttarakhand awaiting us.