[schitre05]

Hi all,
Finally completed my Ashtavinayak tour
started on the 25th (fri) at 7am from thane, mumbai and finished it on the 27th (sun) at 2pm
Halted at kamats restaurant before the karnala sanctuary.

Day 1 Pali-Mahad & Ranjangaon came back to pune halted at a small hotel on the pune-solapur highway

Day 2 Theur-siddhatek-Moregaon saw the crowd at moregaon and decided to head as near as lenyadri so drove till narayangaon and stayed there for the night.

Did siddhatek after Theur instead of Moregaon as we got to know that most of the tour-walas do moregaon first. so as to avoid the crowd we did siddhatek first and completed the darshan the fastest in our whole trip in 1 hr flat.
at moregaon we were a bit unlucky and were caught up in the crowd that consumed close to 3 hrs of our time.

Day 3 Lenyadri @ 6am and then Ozar from there back to mumbai via malshej ghat-kalyan-thane.
(Though Ozar was nearer went ahead for lenyadri as there are around 300 odd steps to be climbed and i thought it was best to do it as early as possible before the sun started heating the place)

A note of caution : Please avoid the dates I mentioned above and this season in particular if you can.
There were atleast 2000-3000 people at each temple we visited and it took an average of 2hrs at each temple for the darshan.
When enquired about the crowd the locals said that this holiday season is one of the very busy times other than festivals.
Otherwise in normal times it does not take more than 5 minutes for darshan at all temples
The car (vista Quadrajet) performed flawlessly over the 875kms of journey.
cheers

[Simhi]

This post is not regarding Ashtavinayak trip. There are lot many posts on the same. One of the recent ones being
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...yak-yatra.html

This post is regarding alternative routes to Theur, Ashtavinayak temple, for people residing in east of Pune, around Kalyani Nagar, Viman Nagar, Vishrantwadi etc.

I always used to take the following route
Nagar Road - Kharadi Mundwa Bypass - Hadapsar - Solapur Highway - Theur

The benefit was that road was good for most part of it. But it was long approximately 27kms and the whole route is crowded.



When I decided to visit it again today, I thought of trying out the alternate routes suggested by Google maps.

So for the onward journey, we took the following route
Nagar Road - Wagholi - Kesnand - Theur Kesnand road - Theur

Total distance is around 19 kms - a saving of 8 kms approximately.
Road till Kesnand is good. However, the Theur-Kesnand road is in motorable condition. However, the roads are not wide enough. If a lorry/truck comes from opposite direction, you will need to get down from the tar road.
The other benefit of this road is traffic is not much. I took 45 mts from Nagar road to Theur.



In return journey, we decided to take the Manjri route.
Theur - Manjri Khurd - Manjri Budruk - Khardi Bypass - Nagar Road

Total distance of 18.6 kms - a saving of 8 kms.
Road from Theur to Manjri Khurd is not in good condition and we had to maintain 30 to 40 kmph. Not much traffic though. However, road beyond Manjri khurd till Khardi bypass is good. The return journey took us around 40 minutes.



Overall, I found the Manjri route better than Kesnand route, except for a small stretch. Anyways, going forward I have decided to avoid taking the Hadapsar - Solapur highway route for visiting Ganesh temple at Theur.

[S_U_N]

Back from Ashtavinayak on Friday.
We went in the proper sequence which we verified even in some of the temples. The correct sequence is as follows:
1. Morgaon
2. Siddhatek
3. Pali
4. Mahad
5. Theur
6. Lenyadri
7. Ozar
8. Ranjangaon
9. Again Morgaon

Total trip distance from Yerwada, Pune was around 920 KM.
We split the journey across three days:
Day 1:
1. Morgaon - Pune to Morgaon roads are average
2. Siddhatek - roads are good
3. Pali - Khopoli to Pali roads are bad
4. Mahad - Pali to Mahad roads are average to bad
We stayed overnight at a lodge right behind the temple (less than 20 meters from the temple. The rate was Rs. 700 and room was clean.

Next day we started at 7:30 and moved to
5. Theur - made a mistake to turn off Nagar road towards Kesnand from the incorrect lane. There was virtually no road there. We should have taken the next turn which has far better roads. Realizied that after sevearal KM's.
6. Lenyadri - Took shortcut at Lohegaon and discovered some new upcoming roads. Of course, driving in first gear was a pain. with further more Nashik highway is narrow and crowded as always.
7. Ozar - only 16 KM from Lenyadri - good roads (mostly) and a nice temple in front of the river.
Halted at Bhakt Niwas number 4 (around Rs. 600 per night)

Third day, we started again at 7:30 and moved on to
8. Ranjangaon - mostly good roads. The section near Khed is awesome
9. Again Morgaon - some roads are really bad, and some sections are good.

Reached home around 6:30 PM

[honeybee]

If one wants to follow the right sequence, three days is the right time to allocate to the journey. Or else one could make Pune as the starting point and maybe complete it in two days.

I did it in two days, but the folly of taking internal roads cost us dear in terms of time wasted. I didn't follow the right sequence. I intend to do another trip which should be comfortably done over two days. Picking a wekend during the exam seasons would help avoid crowds.

[abirnale]

Any update on latest road conditions?

I am doing this circuit starting tomorrow from Bangalore.

Thursday afternoon starting from Bangalore. Halt at Kolhapur/ Satara based on how much I can cover.
Friday - Moregaon- Sidhtek - Theur
Saturday - Ranjangaon - Ozar - Lenyadri - Pali - Mahad.

Ozar and Lenyadri being closer, sequence can be changed to suit the route. Same for Pali and Mahad.

Thanks in advance.

[abhi_tjet]

I did AshtaVinayak trip last weekend. Road conditions and infrastructure has improved by leaps and bounds as compared to my last trip a decade ago. 90% of the roads encountered in our route was superlative with mostly planned speed breakers along the villages since its mostly country roads and state highways.

The route -
Pune - Morgaon - Siddhtek - Theur - Ranjangaon - Ozar - Lenyadri - Mahad - Pali - Pune.

Completed the trip in 2 days without any rush and were back home second day by 5 pm.

Pune - Morgaon:
I took Mumbai-Bangalore bypass and joined the KhedShivpur - Sasvad link road just before the toll plaza. Continued via Sasvad - Jejuri - Morgaon.
NH48 section and Sasvad - Morgaon section is very nice. KhedShivpur - Sasvad link road is patchy at some places and brilliant at most.

Morgaon - Siddhtek:
Morgaon - Supe - Kusegaon - Patas - Daund - Siddhtek.
Entire route is very nice.

Siddhtek - Theur:
Siddhtek - Daund - Patas - Uruli Kanchan(NH65) - Theur.
No surprise here. Awesome roads.

Theur - Ranjangaon:
Theur - Kesnand - Lonikand - Ranjangaon.
Again, no surprises here. Good roads.

Ranjangaon - Ozar:
Ranjangaon - Sone Sanghvi - Malthan - Narayangaon - Ozar.
Roads were absolutely awesome in this stretch which was a pleasant surprise. This stretch is newly constructed and is shown in maps as 'Ashtavinayak highway'.

Ozar - Lenyadri:
Ozar - Kumshet - Lenyadri.
Awesome roads.

Lenyadri - Mahad:
Google showed the typical route via Chakan and Expressway. However, I chose
Lenyadri - Ganeshkhind - Malshej - Talvali Bargaon - Mhasa - Kalamb - Karjat - Palasdari - Mahad.
I have done above route on bike and its beautiful with minimal traffic. There are 2 stretches which aren't up to the mark and work is 'still' in progress.
1. Around 5 kms of stretch near Malshej MTDC is bad from Alephata/Junnar side.
2. Initial section between Mhasa - Kalamb is bad.

Mahad - Pali:
Its usual route via Khopoli - Durshet.
This stretch is nice with some bridge joint work still pending.

Pali - Pune:
Pali - Tamhini - Home. Beautiful road as usual and my favorite stretch. I didnt paid any toll following the above route.

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by abhi_tjet

I did AshtaVinayak trip last weekend. Road conditions and infrastructure has improved by leaps and bounds as compared to my last trip a decade ago.

Nice to know. The last trip I did was in 2011 and yearning to do this during my forthcoming Pune trip. Would it be possible to add the kms for the routes take and time taken. Also where was the night halt taken?

[abhi_tjet]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Would it be possible to add the kms for the routes take and time taken. Also where was the night halt taken?

We chose Ozar for night halt just like last time. The place has developed quite lot in last couple of years.

Below are the distances -
1. Pune - Morgaon: 95 kms around 100 mts (from my place in north west Pune).
2. Morgaon - Siddhtek: 65 kms around an hour.
3. Siddhtek - Theur: 82 kms around 80-90 mts.
4. Theur - Ranjangaon : 41 kms around 45 mts.
5. Ranjangaon - Ozar: 65 kms around 70 mts.
6. Ozar - Lenyadri : 15 kms around 15 mts.
7. Lenyadri - Mahad: 142 kms took around 3 hrs.
8. Mahad - Pali: 40 kms around 50 mts.
9. Pali - Pune: 112 kms around 2.5 hrs.

My entire trip was of around 650 kms.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by abhi_tjet

I did AshtaVinayak trip last weekend. Road conditions and infrastructure has improved by leaps and bounds as compared to my last trip a decade ago
….
Lenyadri - Mahad:
Google showed the typical route via Chakan and Expressway. However, I chose
Lenyadri - Ganeshkhind - Malshej - Talvali Bargaon - Mhasa - Kalamb - Karjat - Palasdari - Mahad.

Thank you @abhi_tjet - I took the exact same stretches you mentioned and your observations helped immensely. The road conditions are so good - it’s very much possible to do all 8 temples in one day provided that you are not hold up in traffic of the city! I completed 6 temples on Sunday and 2 by 8.30am on Monday!

I started from BLR on Saturday, took halt at Satara for the night. Next day around 6.15am started my journey: Moregaon - Sidhtek - Theur - Ranjangaon - Ozar - Lenyadri was done by 3pm. The only miscalculation I did was to get into the normal queue at Ranjangaon and due to Sunday that queue moved very slow. Took about 60 mins for darshan. All other temples, the darshan was done in less than 5 mins. In Ranjangaon they do have the special darshan for Rs. 100 which I did not realise! in Lenyadri - I could climb up, darshan and down in about 15 mins! not much crowd for Sunday afternoon there.

The good thing though, it gave me good opportunity to drive through ganeshkhind - Malshej section to Karjat! The section from Bargaon - Mhasa is good and not much traffic. At the turnoff Dhasai can be easily missed - if you take that, rest is simple gmaps directions else you will go longer route to Mahad.

Here are the sections I took exactly:





After the Pali, I slowed down and kept taking a lot of pictures around tamhini. Finally settled for the night in Pune.

So ideally from Moregaon to Pali - everything can be done in a day if planned to start closer to Moregaon.