[condor]

Sushanth, the map web-sites always go on routes. They do not consider Route conditions, which is very important. The routes that TBHP-ians share are based on the condition of the road, the facilities, apart from the distance etc.

[bhandarkar]

I had got a response to one of my questions on this thread last year (Sept) which was pertaining to Belgaum-Khanapur-Chorla-Goa route. It was mentioned that the road was almost non-existent beyond Khanapur.
I have travelled by bus, car on Belgaum-Chorla-Goa route few years back, hence the road does exist but right not sure what the status is.

Thanks Rajiv-Bang

I would avoid the Hubli Khanapur short cut - pathetic road condition is what I heard. I saw sign boards for wildernest resort on the way from Belgaum to Ponda - u may want to call the resort and ask them for best route option from Hubli.

Thanks a lot JLN. Your post was very useful.

Friends,
Finished my trip. Thanks to a real good post by JLN which helped me a lot. The road is as JLN had described. Stopped at Ghar ka Dhaba as JLN had mentioned.

But here is the real stupid act: Despite all the warnings that Santro cannot pass through Chorla, i took that route. The Wildernest resort guys said that it is definitely NOT motorable by Santro but by either a Scorpio or Bolero. That made me take the challenge and i thought that it might not be worse than that of our Sakleshpur route. That was a mistake.
62 Kms and i took 4 hours and with potholes which measured more than 2 feet in depth. Honestly friends at times during that journey i felt that it is good to take calculated risk but surely not calculus risks... After praying to all gods finally made it through the route...
Please never take that route. There is no thing called as a road here. That is an extinct specimen. I have suffered but surely dont want others to suffer. Especially when travelling with a family....

The best route to travel to Wildernest is to get to Sawantwadi and then traverse back the 80 Kms to the resort.

[JLN]

Originally Posted by sushanthr77

Excellent report JLN. Very useful and detailed.

I am planning to do the same trip mod next week. One question:

From the Hubli - Dharwad Bypass, most online direction provider sites suggests to take the State Highway 34 to reach Molem. Any reasons why this option is not mentioned in any of the suggestions here?

Please refer the link [Dharwad to Mapusa]:

Your web browser and the Maps site are incompatible

I wouldn't experiment with a new route, especially if you are driving with family (a.k.a. women and kids) and do not have a good SUV (atleast a Scorpio). You probably won't save much on time on any of these routes with the additional risk of the road being really bad. IMHO, the only other route not mentioned on this thread recently, that is worth experimenting, is the route the Volvo buses take - via Sirsi and then to Ankola. It will be great if someone who has taken the KSRTC Volvo bus recently can post an update on this route.

[sushanthr77]

Thanks for the reply JLN.

Guys, has anybody done the SH34 recently?

I've pretty much decided to take this route.

[bullinb]

Originally Posted by sushanthr77

Thanks for the reply JLN.

Guys, has anybody done the SH34 recently?

I've pretty much decided to take this route.

The last time I heard (March '10), the road practically doesn't exist. Even the truckers told me to go by Kittur. I would be surprised if they have repaired it in Monsoon.

[XR4Ti]

I just got back from a week long trip to Goa. I went via the well documented NH4-NH63-NH17 route. On the return I wanted to try a different route and discovered an unmarked road (i.e. not marked on google maps). I don't see this route mentioned in this thread so I thought I should share it. On NH4A I was trying to find the road going to Dharwad/NH4 via Kumbarawad. Asked a cop near the intersection in Ramnagar and he said that the road was very bad. He pointed us to another road instead. Somewhere down the road we decided that going to even Dharwad would be pointless and turned towards Hubli at Haliyal.

Map image of route is below.



Green: With the help of the satellite mode, I have marked this road on google maps. The road is a (narrow) two lane with a really decent surface. Could easily do 60-80 Km/h. A few unmarked bumps near settlements/villages. Almost no traffic. This segment is 12-14 Km.

Blue: This road is marked on google maps. Most of the way it is two lanes. There is a small segment (can't remember exact distance) where the road narrows to a single lane (great surface, zero traffic) through a beautiful, dense forests. Just before the beginning of this segment, we came to an intersection where you need to go straight. A right will take you to JLR's Old Magazine House. About half way between Haliyal and Kalghatgi comes a nightmare segment. A really bad, washed out road. This 15 Km segment took us about 45 minutes.

Red: At Kalghatgi, we tried this road to Tadas in an attempt to join NH4. As we entered this segment, we asked an old goat herder how the road was. He smiled wrily and said "There _is_ a road". That was enough for us after the last bone rattling segment. We decided to take NH63 to the Hubli bypass. At that point 45 Km of good surface sounded better than 25 Km of bone jarring, car scraping segment. Also, we were unsure of how this road would connect to NH4.

To summarize:
Panjim-Hubli: 210 Km, driving time 5 hours (can push it to 4.5 hours if you have a vehicle with high ground clearence).
Hubli-Bangalore: 400 Km, driving time 6 hours.

[abhinavj01]

Fellow bhpians (especially JLN), thank you for the detailed report on the routes to Goa.

Had to rush to goa last weekend cause of some emergency and hence just glanced on this thread for the best route.

On previous occasions I had taken the NH4-NH63-NH17 route (once on my unicorn and twice in a car), Hubli-Belgaum-Amboli-Sawantwadi (once) and Jog falls route (once).

Bangalore-Goa

Since time was a premium, stuffed our bags and left at 1:30pm on 15th October 2010 in my friend's Spark LPG (barely a month and a half old).
Thanks to Parag for helping me bypass the Yesvantpur traffic by taking the BEL-Jalahalli cross road.
Still took me 2 hrs to reach Dospet.
Fuel: Topped up petrol at Shell (yes, got the toy Ferrari too) just before the new JAS Toll road and LPG at the HP bunk at Dobspet (attached with a Barista, what appeared like a Kamat and Fleur restrooms).
Time: 3.30

Had carried water and some eatables so was planning a non-stop trip (except the occasional stretch, loo-breaks and additional water - I drink water like a fish, downed almost 3-4 ltrs during the trip).

Route - decided to take the Hubli-Belgaum-sawantwadi route (but changed plans at Hubli bypass as wasnt sure about the road condition and did not want to experiment. Nh63-NH17 it was to be.)

Encountered heavy rain between Haveri and Hubli (and again later at Karwar).

Missed the exit to NH63 at Hubli while over taking a bus and a truck and headed few hundred meters towards Belgaum when realization dawned.
Turned around and headed towards the Nh63 exit.

As mentioned by JLN, the roads are in pretty good condition, barring the occasional potholes which literally jump at you from no where and unmarked speed bumps on either sides of villages.

The yellapur-kalghati ghat section does have some bad roads - but easily motorable.

Surprisingly found quite a bit of fog after entering Goa right upto Cuncolim.

Reached home (Bambolim) at 1:30am.

Goa-Bangalore
Date: 18th October 2010
Time: 2pm at Navelim Church

Decided to stick to the tried and tested NH17-NH63-NH4 route for the return journey.
Had topped up fuel at margao (but no luck with LPG as nearest LPG outlet was at Ponda or Old Goa - too far).

Return journey was comparatively smoother as did not have any rains.
The A-pillar in the Spark proved to be a nuisance on the ghats (Cuncolim to Karwar and again on Yellapur-Kalghati) as it completely blocks view of oncoming vehicles. Hadnt observed this problem during the onward journey as it was already dark then and headlights of oncoming vehicles were a good indicator.

Time: 5:30-5:45pm
Stopped at the Reliance petrol bunk just after Hubli for a meal at Kamat (formerly A1).
Left Kamat at 6:30pm

Certain stretch between Hubli and Haveri is being re-laid and one side of the road is used for both

There was one speed breaker between Hubli-Davanagere section (cant remember where exactly) which comes on a dip in the road and is actually a blind spot. I was doing 100+ and could not slow down in time - so watch out for it.

Watch out for the NH4 markings before Haveri. Since its a 2-lane section, its very easy to accidently head towards Haveri rather than continuing on NH4 (like I did :( )

Reached Bangalore (Cooke town) at 12:30am.
The return journey was in 10.5 hours which included 1.5 hours of stoppage for food, refueling and loo breaks + 1 abnormally long wait at a toll booth.

Few words on the car - Spark LPG
I have always kind of underestimated the Spark but after this trip, I have new found respect for it.
Handling on the highway and even on the ghats was pretty amazing.

FE: with 80-85% A/c
Petrol: 17-18kmpl
LPG: 15kmpl

PS: my first lengthy post on T-bhp though I am a member for last 3-4yrs.

[sarinkumar]

I am starting coming weekend to Goa via Jog. I am planning to take the infamous stretch of Shimoga -- Jog as we have a plan to stay two nights at Jog and go around. Anyone help me to understand how bad is this stretch. LIke is it 90%, 50% etc. Since Jog is in our radar, we have no choice but to take this route. I am driving SX4 ZXi

Sarin

[ampere]

@XR4Ti,

The route you took while coming, forms part of a regular road network that folks around Dandeli/Ganeshgudi/Kadra
used take to reach Londa. These roads were important in those times when the the "famed" Goa Express (Delhi-Madgaon)
was not supposed to travel via Castle Rock due to safety issues.

The train was used go till Hubli for clean-up/yard after hitting Londa.
Hence Londa was practically the starting point for most folks.

Some Notes:
1. The route I think you took should be : Ramnagar-Ganeshgudi-Joida-Dandeli
2. Ramnagar-Haliyal route must have touched Dandeli. (Can you confirm?)
3. Kumbar wada is wrongly marked in Google maps. You should see it between Kadra and Joida (beyond Anshi)
4. Haliyal-Yellapur is a well known, but the route to Kalghatgi is not taken that often. How was the road condition?
5. Dandeli-Haliyal-Hubli has been pretty bad for a long. It have never improved.

[Avinash_R]

[COLOR=black]Guys, leavin tommorow for north goa at around 5pm from bangalore..[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]Taking the route Tumkur - Davangere - Hubli - Dharwad - Kittur - Khanapur - Ponda - Panaji[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]Stopping at Davangere at a hotel in the night and resuming our journey to goa in the morning[/COLOR]

Going by an innova..

any suggestions or comments?

[Zoomsun]

Originally Posted by sarinkumar

I am starting coming weekend to Goa via Jog. I am planning to take the infamous stretch of Shimoga -- Jog as we have a plan to stay two nights at Jog and go around. Anyone help me to understand how bad is this stretch. LIke is it 90%, 50% etc. Since Jog is in our radar, we have no choice but to take this route. I am driving SX4 ZXi

I had been on this stretch last december, and the ghat roads are pretty horrible. Some stretches have pretty deep potholes, but the roads are pretty wide.

On the return journey, took the hubli route from karwar, but then the problem was the mining truck traffic, but good roads.

And yeah, I had been in an Innova.

Sarin

Originally Posted by Avinash_R

[COLOR=black]Guys, leavin tommorow for north goa at around 5pm from bangalore..[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]Taking the route Tumkur - Davangere - Hubli - Dharwad - Kittur - Khanapur - Ponda - Panaji[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]Stopping at Davangere at a hotel in the night and resuming our journey to goa in the morning[/COLOR]

Going by an innova..

any suggestions or comments?

The route is pretty good. Innova should cruise at 140s on the NH4.

[sarinkumar]

Originally Posted by Zoomsun

The route is pretty good. Innova should cruise at 140s on the NH4.

Thanks Zoomsun. Anyway I will take this route as we will be spending two nights at Jog. I will try to update this route condition once I am back.
Regards,
Sarin

[Avinash_R]

Thanks zoomsun. Relieved to hear that. The driver wanted to take the shimoga route but I told him that we will go via davangere. I will update the roads conditions once I get back.

[XR4Ti]

Originally Posted by ampere

@XR4Ti,
Some Notes:
1. The route I think you took should be : Ramnagar-Ganeshgudi-Joida-Dandeli
2. Ramnagar-Haliyal route must have touched Dandeli. (Can you confirm?)
3. Kumbar wada is wrongly marked in Google maps. You should see it between Kadra and Joida (beyond Anshi)
4. Haliyal-Yellapur is a well known, but the route to Kalghatgi is not taken that often. How was the road condition?
5. Dandeli-Haliyal-Hubli has been pretty bad for a long. It have never improved.

@ampere,

Sorry about the delay in responding to you.

1/2. Ramnagar-Ganeshgudi, yes. I don't remember seeing or passing Joida. We did not pass through Dandeli, but near it. There were signs pointing to it at a couple of intersections.
3. I didn't pass Kumbar wada so I can't confirm.
4. Mostly good, except the last 15 Km before Kalghatgi. Here the average speed was about 20 Kmph. Most of the road was nearly washed out. Will probably be worse after next year's Monsoon unless it is repaired. I would say that with SUV type ground clearance, this will continue to be a good time and distance saving shortcut.
5. Again, can't say about the Dandeli-Haliyal segment, but the route I took turned out to be pretty decent (barring the 15 Km).

[sarinkumar]

Originally Posted by sarinkumar

Thanks Zoomsun. Anyway I will take this route as we will be spending two nights at Jog. I will try to update this route condition once I am back.
Regards,
Sarin

We completed our Jog and Goa trip. I thought of updating the trip, mainly the road condition to Goa via Shimoga, Jog. We started our trip on 30th morning around 7;30am from Gottigere. Obvious choice for us was to take NICE road as it is only 1.5km away from our place. Up to Tumkur it was a smooth drive. After Tumkur toll booth, we turned left to take by pass to NH 206. The by pass is in bad condition with lots of potholes. The NH 206 was in good condition till tiptur. The road condition inside the Tiptur town is really bad. Tiptur to Arasikere the road was in good condition again. From Arasikere for about 6 kms, the road was in really bad condition. Also between Tumkur and Gubba there are many humps which are not really marked. After Birur, about 2 kms, the road is very bad between two railway gates. The road work there is in progress and hopefully in coming months it will be in good condition. We reached Shimoga around 12:30PM. Had lunch near bus stand, at Bright hotel, and started to Lion safari near Shimoga (Tyavarekoppa). Its on the Shimoga – Sagar road. We spend nearly 1.5 hours there. If you have seen Bannerghatta national park, this place won’t excite you much. From there we went directly to our home stay (Stay @ Mattuga). The road condition from Lion Safari to Sagar is very good. From Sagar till Homestay, the road is bad. Stay @ Mattuga is on the NH 206 between Sagar and Jog. One needs to drive around 100 meters inside to reach this place. We spent two nights there and went around Jog falls, Ikkeri, Keladi and did boating at Talakele dam. This is a good place to do boating and it cost Rs. 200 for one hour ride. We packed our bag on November 1st to explore Goa. Jog to Honnavar route was good with few bad stretches. NH 17, as you all know is in good condition.


To conclude, 75% of NH 206 is in good condition. If you have big vehicle like, Scorpio, Xylo, Innova, SX4 etc, this stretch is not a problem at all. For small vehicles, the bad stretch can be a real nightmare. If the authorities won’t act now, the bad % part will increase from 25% to ???.


Bangalore to Stay @ Mattuga is around 390KM
Stay @ Mattuga to Panaji is around 255KM


Regards,
Sarin