re: Mumbai - Aurangabad : Route Queries Just back from trip to Aur yest night.
We had planned a break at Shirdi so it was in 2 phases, Mum-Shirdi and Shirdi-Vaijapur-Aur.
The Mum-Shirdi route is breeze especially upto Ghoti as it the fantastic NH3 and ideal road as it should be. We started at 5:30 am from home (powai) and were at Ghoti Toll at 7 am with a distance of 119 km covered. You can easily cruise at 120-140 on this. Ghoti-Sinnar route though two laned, is still damn good and you can achieve similar speeds though watch out for villages en route. We reached Shirdi at 8:35 am covering a total distance of 230 km. Amazing route.
The Shirdi-Vaijapur-Aur route is real pain especially upto Vaijapur but then it improves (though not greatly). The road passes through many villages and it is liked ploughed field. You got to be real choosy on which gives you want your tyres to run on and watch speed. I could go upto 100 on this but ideal would be 60 on this stretch. Before taking on this route had asked the police outpost at the junction of Shirdi and they said take this route only. Dont know how good or bad the Yeola route is. The bad of Vaijapur route may be because of the farms and villages nearby and maybe deliberately kept as it is to safeguard people to keep speeds in check. You also find the roads flooded with bikes with loads of people on them, tractors, trucks and speed gets limited due to the same too. We started from Shirdi after Darshan at 10:43 am and reached Aur, touched Holy Cross School, Aur at 12:55 pm covering a total of 335 km.
Mum-Ghoti ~ 119 km 1.5 hrs
Ghoti-Shirdi ~ 110 km 1.5 hrs
Shirdi-Aur ~ 104 km 2.10 hrs with a 20 min break at roadside Rasvanti for nice fresh Ganne Ka Ras. There are few at the starting stretch from Shirdi, so catch that refreshment.
I was thiking of Yeola route for return but then thought anyway it will involve similar route. So decided to take upon Chakan route.
Aur-Chakan/Pune-Mum Sh60-Sh27 is again breeze to drive. Superb road except for few small hitches in between, especially at the starting sections the road is pretty rough and still you have to pay a toll at 2 places of Rs 25/- each. I told the toll guys this is cheating and stealing and they also admitted to that but they have to collect it anyway. Then on the things improve drastically to smooth road. I made mistake of missing the Nagar bypass on right side and ended up in the Nagar market which is real pain to cross especially in peak hours/afternoon as I experienced. You got to watch out for villages and infrequent breaks in the dividers and people/motocycles crossing there and few villages en-route. Other than that you can easily do 120-140 on this route. Another mistake I did was to miss the Chakan route at Shikrapur after Shirur and missed the Chakan Shikrapur Road, ended up at the Koregaon toll.
Having missed the Chakan route, thought we will now take a break in our Pune home and carried on into Pune City. Started from Aur at 12:20 pm, reached Nagar Mkt 2:10 pm, 111 km and reached Pune at 4:10 pm 224 km. Bad thing about the route was the traffic of trucks and bikes en-route in the mid-afternoon hours. Later in evening took the Mumbai Pune Expressway, this time adhered completely to 80 kph speed limits staying in the middle lane and reached Mumbai home in 3.5 hrs. |