A 150 acres of rough terrain, hill-cut roads, slushy tracks, rocky ramps, make the rumble of a 4x4 that much more meaningful for a motorhead. Overlooking the Mangaluru International airport, at Kolambe village, Pana Education and Mahindra Adventure, have set up Mahindra Off-roading Academy, the first in South India.

Getting there will tell you whether you’re up for the ride or not. You drive down a narrow rocky path just wide enough for an off-roading vehicle to pass through, looking down a 90-foot drop on one side. Talk about cliffhanger beginnings!

Is an academy for off-roading a bit of a contradiction? “Adventure activates both creative and reactive sides, but this needs mental conditioning and training,” says Dr Prasad Hegde, chairman of the Pana institutions. “This is also a part of the larger Happiness academy that the institutions plan to put together with many more adventure courses and a touch of academics.”

Presently, Mahindra has two such academies, one at Igatpuri in Maharashtra, which is smaller than the one in Mangaluru, but it had a head start. It was started in 2013 and has trained 1,600 people in off-road motoring. “We are planning two more such academies by 2020 in Punjab and the North-Eastern sector of the country,” says Bijoy Kumar, who heads the Mahindra Adventure initiative. He also sees a vibrant future for adventure motoring in the country. Besides driving, the academies have training capsules in disaster management, including onboard para-medical assistance; retrieval of people, vehicles and material from disaster sites; and how to maximise safety, says Bijoy Kumar.

The academy has the expertise of ace rallyist Ashwin Naik, who won the European Rally Championship in Athens, Greece, and made it to the top position in the National Rally Championship, both last year.

“It is important to get outright dirty,” says Selvin, a trainer. “Don’t worry about sneakers, jeans, accessories; get ready to dirty them — it’s the first lesson ever in off-roading. The elementary course has been called just that: Get Dirty, followed by Trail Survivor and Global Explorer, which delves deep into the dynamics of the vehicles and driving techniques. “Here, the obstacles get tougher and more in number, and it also has the night off-roading segment,” he says.

It takes Mangaluru one step closer to becoming an adventure sports destination. There’s already snorkelling, scuba diving and other aquatic-based adventure circuits, on the beach; trekking, hiking and wildlife tracking on the Western ghats side. And now, off-roading.