[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by Hurrycane12

I did the Bangalore - Mumbai trip in the 1st week of Oct 08; We left Bangalore at 4:45 AM and were in Pune at 4:30 PM there on touched Vashi at 6:45 PM, Mira Road at 8 PM.

The 12 hr journey to Pune included 2 fuel breaks and 1 break each for breakfast and lunch.

This is pretty good timings from Bangalore to Vashi, what car did you ride and were there multiple driveirs? Just wanting to benchmark some timings for this stretch for myself. Evaluating options for a possible ride down to Kerala in Jan. Road conditions have changed since I did it in June, 08 and it was raining.

Thanks.

--Ramky
=====

[Hurrycane12]

Ride: Baleno ; I drove the entire stretch all alone. It did rain during my return leg which was via Shimoga; I did Bombay - Shimoga in 11 hrs this was via Honalli

[litesaber]

Originally Posted by f1fan

I believe you meant to say you went all the way to King Circle and not Sion Circle .
Also hope you didnt get stuck in the massive traffic jams in that area due to the upcoming flyovers at KC and Sion Hospital.

Yes it was at King Circle where I finally got to take a U turn to head back to Sion hospital. I missed the Sion Station road because I got on the flyover by mistake and was stuck in very bad jam due to construction :-(

Would 5am be a good enough time to leave Mumbai on my return leg in a week? I plan to make a stop at Dharwad on the way back.

[hvkumar]

Please bear in mind that the sugarcane cutting season has begun in South-West Maharashtra, which means the stretch from Satara to Kolhapur has high traffic of bullock carts, tractors and miscellaneous traffic even into late night. Lot of this traffic also drives on the wrong side of the road.

Leaving Bombay even earlier than 5 am (say, 3-4 am) would be ideal because that will help you drive all the way to Kolhapur in good time - especially escape the congestion in Pune bypass).

[RGP]

Planning to head to Pune this Saturday (20/12), but the plan is not yet confirmed.
Any update on road/traffic conditions that would help? Any progress in road work between Chitradurga to Haveri? And finally.. anybody else heading that way on the same day? Company is always welcome

[VJ_MAVRICK]

@RGP: I think there are still bad patches in between Chitradurga and Haveri, which am not sure when it is going to complete as those bad patches are now on for ages. Anyways, Have a safe one and do PM Hari "Lukeskywalker" who did this stretch about 2 weeks back and he will be able to give the exact details.

[anainar]

Originally Posted by RGP

Planning to head to Pune this Saturday (20/12), but the plan is not yet confirmed.
Any update on road/traffic conditions that would help? Any progress in road work between Chitradurga to Haveri? And finally.. anybody else heading that way on the same day? Company is always welcome

Hi RGP, most likely I will be driving all by myself again to Pune on 20th. I did this trip for Diwali and now again for Christmas holidays.

Any updates by those who did this route in the recent past will help. I did travel to Pune the last week in KSRTC, but did not bother to check the road conditions. It took 15 hours to reach Swargate from Majestic in a Volvo with three breaks, each amounting to 30-45 minutes. I did this stretch in my Corolla in 12.5 hours.Dont know whether the status has changed in recent past one month.

Nainar

[viveklk]

I did Bangalore-Kolhapur in my SX4 on 21st December. This is my 4th trip on same NH in last one year.

The road is much improved. The Chitradurga-Davangere-Ranibennur stretch has improved a lot. The road work is in progress. You still need to go thru Ranibennur but the road is tarred now. Earlier this used to be uneven road. You will find difference right from Chitradurga, the NH work is progressed much faster.

The number of diversions are not zero but reduced. It might take another year or so to build this stretch completely. However, Tumkur remains hopeless. On 21st Dec, the cops had blocked the so called bypass because of an accident due to which I had to drive through the city, I used this to get nice breakfast at a restuarant called Hoyasala & then with the help of traffic cop in Tumkur I quickly came out fo city taking right turn on the first signal itself to hit the NH again.

I'm currently in Belgaum and I'll be doing Belgaum-Bangalore sometime this weekend.

Cheers to all!
Vivek

[DaiusPitar]

Thanks guys, this thread was really useful. I did bangy-mumbai on the 17th-18th december.

My initial plan was to leave bangalore on the 17th around 3am as suggested by all so that I could rest on the 18th and start my new job in Mumbai on the 19th, Friday. Unfortunately, the packers and movers delayed their bit and we managed to leave bangalore only at 6.30 pm on the 17th.

Being so late, we waded through traffic from Indiranagar to Hebbal via the ORR. Adopted hvkumar's suggestions with his excellent directions in an earlier post and took the yelahanka-doddaballapur-dobbspet route. No problem at all. We managed to reach Chitradurga only around 11 pm thanks to the traffic till yelahanka. Put up for the night there at some hotel. Probably should have headed up to Davangere, but I was pretty bushed.

BTW, the drive in the night on the highway stretch to Chitradurga was pretty trippy what with the cat's eyes on the roads guiding you in the dark and the railings on the sides.

Anyways, we left Chitradurga around 9.30-10 in the morning. Breakfast was a lazy one hour halt at the Ranibennur BP COCO/apna ghar. The next stop was for lunch at Kolhapur at 3.30. Headed off at 4.30, took the pune expressway and we were at home in Ghatkopar by 9.30 pm.

The patch between Chitradurga-Davangere-Ranibennur was by far the worst on the entire trip. And the most painful was Pune traffic till the hinjewadi-pune junction, especially after the beautiful stretch from Ranibennur to there. The drive is really nice between hubli/dharwad-Belgaum-Kolhapur.

One irritation was to have to slow down for the toll gates that were seeming too frequent and too many after a bit.

[chetans]

had done the bng-pune trip on 18th dec and pune-bng on 3rd jan.
had taken the ORR-hebbal-yelahanka-doddabalapur route to NH4.
starter around 6 am and reached pune at 10pm.

initial 300kms are bit tough due to several diversions. apart from that it was fine.
but good thing is that the work has started on this stretch. hopefully within a year, this stretch would get in shape.

while returning, had missed the turn to dabaspet/doddaballapur. but there wasnt much traffic on peenya-jallahalli-ORR route. had started bit late at around 7:30 from pune and reached bangalore at around 10pm.

[deepakvrao]

Hi guys,

Posted this in the Bang-Goa thread too but no replies. I think the general consensus is that the best route for Bang-Goa is via NH4 and turnoff to Mirjan and then Karwar? Am I correct?

How is the road after the turnoff? And where exactly do you take this turn off? If the Hubli Ankola road really that bad?

The patch between Chitradurga-Davangere-Ranibennur was by far the worst on the entire trip

How bad and for how many Kms?

[VJ_MAVRICK]

Deepak! The above patch between Chitradurga -Davengere and Rannibebbur had been newly laid up and I travelled along this road about a month back and the bad patches had been totally laid up, so relax about that stretch.

Regarding the route to Goa, yes you can head on the NH4 and then take the Mirjan Road and towards Karwar.Though I had not personally travelled to Goa on this road, I heard that the road is fine and I would suggest PM Kumar Sir "hvkumar" and he can immediately clarify your query. Have a good and safe drive.

[arindamray]

@deepakvrao: You can take diversion from Haveri to Sirsi, and then onward to Mirjan and Karwar if you want to go to South goa.There are tons of info available on bangalore goa road, use 'search' both in route query and travelogue sections.

[deepakvrao]

Thanks Maverick, arindamray,

I have tried the search but what info I want to know and have not found is:

Is the Sirsi route suggested because it is better than the Hubli-Ankola? or because its shorter?

If the Hubli Ankola road is good then I would prefer that road even if a little longer. The last time I drove I had hell on the NH4 but the Hubli-Ankola road per se was fine.

[akroy]

Originally Posted by deepakvrao

Thanks Maverick, arindamray,

I have tried the search but what info I want to know and have not found is:

Is the Sirsi route suggested because it is better than the Hubli-Ankola? or because its shorter?

If the Hubli Ankola road is good then I would prefer that road even if a little longer. The last time I drove I had hell on the NH4 but the Hubli-Ankola road per se was fine.

deepak, pls go through the following thread:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...alore-goa.html

your distances dillemma will also be cleared.

Abhi