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Old 11th November 2011, 17:15   #1
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Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

I drive from Bangalore to my home in Nagpur every Diwali since last 4 years. To people who don't realize that I (or anyone) can actually enjoy it, I give the reason as 'no reservations available'. But the truth is I go home for Diwali mostly because I get to drive.

Total distance to be covered one way is ~ 1100 - 1200 km depending upon which villages / towns you bypass and which you don't. Year by year, I improved steadily in the distance I covered in one day. Last year I had stopped at Armur (~300 km from Nagpur) in onward journey and Kurnool on my way back to Bangalore. With more and more of the NH7 being 4-laned, I was confident I could finally beat Rajdhani train (which takes ~21 hrs) this year.

Things did not start well with powercut on the eve of the journey. This meant we started 1 hour later than planned 04.30 hrs. Still it wasn't too bad as unlike last year no rain was predicted anywhere on the route. Thankfully it actually did not rain and I could maintain the maximum allowed speed of 100 kph throughout. With GPS speed also available, I noticed that at actual 100 kph, Beat speedometer showed 109 kph. We made it to Hyderabad by noon and took the Nehru ORR. I had glimpses of this modern marvel last year.

This year it is almost ready. It has 4 lanes each sides with shoulders, well marked exits and on top of it nice views. Believe it or not, the speed limit here is 120 kph (75 mph)! This is more than even the maximum limit of 70 mph in US! I finally felt proud about infrastructure in India Problem is you have to get off the ORR at Gachibowli-Miyapur road as the work is still in progress beyond that. I took the Medak-Medchal road and got back on NH7 (which is already renamed as NH44 in AP). Here we stopped for lunch.

Post lunch, we got back on road and everything was nice till 30 kms to Armur. Here again the road work is still in progress and I had to stick to the old highway. You also have to pass through Armur town which is a bit bad on the nerves after 800 km of 4/6 lane road. But it ended soon after Armur and the road was again great till Maharashtra border.

I remember as kids in Nagpur we used to joke about roads in MP and how Maharashtra roads are way better. The feelings are reversed when you enter Maharashtra from AP. Lot of places the rennovation work has started and then stalled since past 3 years. The Bori - Wadki stretch is finished but Wadki - Wadner is still as horrible as it was 4 years back with no hope on the horizon.

Once we crosed Wadner around 19:45 hrs, road is again nice through Hinganghat - Jaamb all the way to Nagpur. We made it home around 22:00 hrs. clocking 1100+ km in 16.5 hrs. comfortably beating Rajdhani

I am starting with the map - roads marked based on their quality...
Attached Thumbnails
Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-map.jpg  

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Old 11th November 2011, 17:18   #2
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Some pictures of Nehru ORR in Hyderabad...
Attached Thumbnails
Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-pa295586.jpg  

Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-pa295589.jpg  

Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-pa295603.jpg  

Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-pa295628.jpg  

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Old 11th November 2011, 17:21   #3
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Notice NH7 has already been renamed as NH44...
Attached Thumbnails
Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-pa295600.jpg  

Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-renumbered_national_highways_map_of_india_schematic.jpg  

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Old 11th November 2011, 17:24   #4
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

3333 km to 4444 km in a day !

I did catch some rain on my way back near Ananthpur. It kept company on and off till Bangalore.
Attached Thumbnails
Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-photo0028.jpg  

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Old 11th November 2011, 17:33   #5
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Finally to the bottom line...

Total toll paid was Rs. 1209 (to and fro)

I consumed about 140 litres of petrol for total 2350 km (including some city driving in Nagpur) which gave me a mileage of ~ 17 kmpl.
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Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!-toll.jpg  

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Old 11th November 2011, 18:13   #6
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Very good timing indeed. How about the breaks in between? Also, what is the speed limit for other vehicles in this Nehru ORR? Is two wheelers allowed there?
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Old 11th November 2011, 19:00   #7
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

"In one day" is still fresh in my memories when I did Bangalore-Surat via Thane (1250Kms) on 22nd Oct 2011, starting at 4:30am from Bangalore and reaching Surat Destination at 11-30pm. This was a part of my 15 day drive covering GJ and back to Bangalore in my humble WagonR which has now clocked 153,000 Kms on the ODO.

I was the only driver accompanied by my parents. Here are a few details of the Trip:

Start(Bengaluru)-4:30am
Breakfast at Shiggaon - 80 Mins (At my friend's farmhouse)
Refueling at Dharwad - 10 Mins
Bio Break at McDs, Kolhapur - 10 Mins
Lunch Break at Pune - 60 Mins
Refueling at eway - 10 Mins
Dinner break near Charoti - 45 Mins
End (Surat)- 11:30pm

Total Break time - 215 Mins (3h 35m)
Total driving time - 15h 25m
Total distance covered - 1250Kms
Average driving speed- 80.64 Kmph
This included passing Mumbai between 5:45pm and 7:45pm.
Everything worked perfectly well.

The only other longest drive in a day was Bangalore-Pune-Aurangabad (1100kms) and passing Pune between 6pm and 8pm.

Enroute I met fellow Bhpian "limpid" near Nippani and we did a sync drive till Kolhapur and in Mumbai I met the legend of our highways, HV Kumar for 10 minutes as well.

Last edited by paragsachania : 11th November 2011 at 19:03.
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Old 11th November 2011, 20:43   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by coolclouds View Post
Very good timing indeed. How about the breaks in between? Also, what is the speed limit for other vehicles in this Nehru ORR? Is two wheelers allowed there?
Not to many breaks. Since I started with full tank, I stopped for fuel near Hyderabad. Breakfast was in the car since my wife & dad had packed some stuff while emptying the fridge.

Second stop was at Medchal for lunch. Third was for tea just out of Adilabad at a BP petrol bunk. I did not refill there though - just the tea/coffee.

Same story on my way back - three stops. First near Armur for fuel / breakfast, second in Hyderabad for lunch and third just out of Kurnool for tea / coffee and fuel.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paragsachania View Post
"In one day" is still fresh in my memories when I did Bangalore-Surat via Thane (1250Kms) on 22nd Oct 2011, starting at 4:30am from Bangalore and reaching Surat Destination at 11-30pm. This was a part of my 15 day drive covering GJ and back to Bangalore in my humble WagonR which has now clocked 153,000 Kms on the ODO.

I was the only driver accompanied by my parents. Here are a few details of the Trip:

Start(Bengaluru)-4:30am
Breakfast at Shiggaon - 80 Mins (At my friend's farmhouse)
Refueling at Dharwad - 10 Mins
Bio Break at McDs, Kolhapur - 10 Mins
Lunch Break at Pune - 60 Mins
Refueling at eway - 10 Mins
Dinner break near Charoti - 45 Mins
End (Surat)- 11:30pm

Total Break time - 215 Mins (3h 35m)
Total driving time - 15h 25m
Total distance covered - 1250Kms
Average driving speed- 80.64 Kmph
This included passing Mumbai between 5:45pm and 7:45pm.
Everything worked perfectly well.

The only other longest drive in a day was Bangalore-Pune-Aurangabad (1100kms) and passing Pune between 6pm and 8pm.

Enroute I met fellow Bhpian "limpid" near Nippani and we did a sync drive till Kolhapur and in Mumbai I met the legend of our highways, HV Kumar for 10 minutes as well.
Looks like you did the same on NH4 what I did on NH7 - and the same day. You probably drove with my boss in his Cruze AT!

I don't think 1000+ km/day is possible without fatigue unless we have roads like NH4 & NH7. Having said that, my uncle had driven on scooter from Nagpur to Hyderabad (where they stayed for the night) and then Bangalore in 1976. They further rode to Chennai where they finally put their scooters in brake luggage and took the train back to Nagpur. I simply can't imagine how he did that - that too with a friend as pillion.

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team : Please use "Multi Quote" option for quoting Multiple posts, instead of creating another back-to-back post.

Last edited by Technocrat : 25th November 2011 at 22:03. Reason: Please read the Mod Note in your post carefully, thanks
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Old 11th November 2011, 22:09   #9
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Quote:
Originally Posted by paragsachania View Post
"

Start(Bengaluru)-4:30am
Breakfast at Shiggaon - 80 Mins (At my friend's farmhouse)
Refueling at Dharwad - 10 Mins
Bio Break at McDs, Kolhapur - 10 Mins
Lunch Break at Pune - 60 Mins
This is amazing.
It looks like you have averaged over 100 Kms per hour. While I know it is possible in Karnataka, how did you manage the section from Kohlapur to Pune which is usually crowded.
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Old 12th November 2011, 07:28   #10
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Excellent, 16-20 Hours Nagpur is now doable, now we can start planning to go by Car instead of Air/Train. So the total cost was

1209 + (140*70) = 1209 + 9800 = ~11K (Maybe less as i have taken BLR Petrol prices which are competing with Gold prices.

So not only its cheaper/faster then Rajdhani, its cheaper then flight as well. Very interesting, we would surely do this sometime soon as my home town is Jabalpur/Raipur.

One question, was it easy to drive 16 hours at a stretch or were there more then one driver?
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Old 12th November 2011, 11:35   #11
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Quote:
Originally Posted by mayankjha1806 View Post
Excellent, 16-20 Hours Nagpur is now doable, now we can start planning to go by Car instead of Air/Train. So the total cost was

1209 + (140*70) = 1209 + 9800 = ~11K (Maybe less as i have taken BLR Petrol prices which are competing with Gold prices.

So not only its cheaper/faster then Rajdhani, its cheaper then flight as well. Very interesting, we would surely do this sometime soon as my home town is Jabalpur/Raipur.

One question, was it easy to drive 16 hours at a stretch or were there more then one driver?
Yes - and if 3 or more are travelling it is cheaper than Rajdhani as well (since you have to consider the cost of commute to Majestic) You don't have to wake up at 7.30 am 3 months in advance and find IRCTC website crashed. And it also spares you the mental torture of fighting with rick drivers / bus conductors

Can you do 16 hrs at a stretch? Depends on lot of things

1. You: Before I began 4 years back, I tested myself on shorter drives. Bangalore- Chennai, etc. Gauging yourself is very important as each individual is not the same. The cars now-a-days outlast the drivers - usually they are not the concern.
2. Road condition: In this case NH7 is 4-laned almost through to Nagpur and some distance beyond. But two lane roads cause many times more driver fatigue than the 4-lane highways.
3. Car ergonomics: You have to keep your right foot planted on the throttle like I had to if you don't have cruise control. In 2-lane roads and city traffic, the left foot on clutch also can get achy. Comfy seats for passengers are also important.
4. Tubeless tires: Not essential but preferable as they heat up less as compared to tubed ones. Also recommended is nitrogen fill.
5. Co-passengers: One of my friend's wife can't stand car for more than an hour at a stretch. Then it doesn't matter even if everything else is feasible. You have to make sure your co-passengers are up to it. If you drag someone along, it is no longer a pleasant trip and 16 hours is impossible.

You are right when you say 'plan'. Build yourself up to along trip by testing each of these in a series of shorter drives.

P.S. This is the first time I did it at-a-stretch. Last 3 times, I stopped en-route for the night - both to and fro.

Last edited by XH_Vee : 12th November 2011 at 11:39. Reason: Forgot to mention one relevant point
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Old 14th November 2011, 14:23   #12
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Quote:
Originally Posted by XH_Vee View Post
Looks like you did the same on NH4 what I did on NH7 - and the same day. You probably drove with my boss in his Cruze AT!

I don't think 1000+ km/day is possible without fatigue unless we have roads like NH4 & NH7. Having said that, my uncle had driven on scooter from Nagpur to Hyderabad (where they stayed for the night) and then Bangalore in 1976. They further rode to Chennai where they finally put their scooters in brake luggage and took the train back to Nagpur. I simply can't imagine how he did that - that too with a friend as pillion.
You are right. It depend majorly on what time we start the journey. As you might agree, one can cover the maximum distance in the first 5 hours of their journey if started at 4-00am.

The only pain areas would be crossing some really bad roads or traffic that you expect at the second half of your journey. Imagine driving more than 500-700 Kilometers and then negotiating a bad patch or traffic. It is plain irritating.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dot View Post
This is amazing.
It looks like you have averaged over 100 Kms per hour. While I know it is possible in Karnataka, how did you manage the section from Kohlapur to Pune which is usually crowded.
You are right. I was averaging 100kmph at least for the first 4 hours.

As you can see, at the end of the trip I averaged 81kmph from Door to Door.
Luckily Kolhapur-Pune had traffic but less crowd at the toll booths.

Eway was a belter again but I was stuck majorly on Thane-Belapur Road, Thane-Ghodbundar road due to peak evening traffic.

The earlier plan was to take 3 hours break at Thane and then start for Surat at 10pm to avoid outgoing traffic. But I met HVK and shared my intentions of driving ahead since I was fine with it.

The outgoing traffic was not much but the drive from Thane onwards on NH8 became a little slow (80-90kmph) due to deviations and darker sections.

I deviated off NH8 towards Surat city at 11pm (after a 45 minutes dinner break at Charoti) and was at Surat destination at 11-30pm.

In March, I had done Bangalore-Rajkot with wife and my one year old daughter in ANHC. So I opted to halt at Thane even though we reached Thane at 7-30pm itself.

This time, it was just my parents and I did it on the WagonR since my parents find it painful to get out of the ANHC after a long drive. It worked out well since we took enough long breaks lasting 80mins and 60 minutes for breakfast and late lunch and those quick 10 minute breaks for refueling twice and the last one for dinner for 45 mins.
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Old 14th November 2011, 15:13   #13
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

Thats a good update and I liked the way you have marked 'Red' spots on NH44.

I have done this stretch 'alone', both to & fro in last December. The road condition was more or less same.

While my BLR - NGP journey was at night and took me 14.5 Hrs (including breaks); return journey was during the day which took 13.5 Hrs (including breaks).

But I was more tired after a day journey than the one at night. May be it was a sunny day or I faced more traffic.

I wish to do it again soon.

Last edited by neo45007 : 14th November 2011 at 15:16.
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Old 14th November 2011, 15:24   #14
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Re: Bangalore - Nagpur NH7 (or now NH44) in one day!

That's a good update. I have been wondering about the Hyd - Nagpur road conditions.

BTW what is the state of eateries on the highway beyond Nirmal?

Cheers
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Old 14th November 2011, 17:55   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neo45007 View Post
Thats a good update and I liked the way you have marked 'Red' spots on NH44.

I have done this stretch 'alone', both to & fro in last December. The road condition was more or less same.

While my BLR - NGP journey was at night and took me 14.5 Hrs (including breaks); return journey was during the day which took 13.5 Hrs (including breaks).

But I was more tired after a day journey than the one at night. May be it was a sunny day or I faced more traffic.

I wish to do it again soon.

Cool - I think alone I might also clock similar times since I don't drink tea.


Quote:
Originally Posted by MileCruncher View Post
That's a good update. I have been wondering about the Hyd - Nagpur road conditions.

BTW what is the state of eateries on the highway beyond Nirmal?

Cheers
Eateries are far an few. Some HP petrol bunks have Ghar dhabas which is a sort of franchise. There's nothing after Adilabad / state border, till you reach Hinganghat / Jaamb. By then you usually loose interest in stopping for snacks and drive straight to Nagpur!

Quote:
Originally Posted by coolclouds View Post
Very good timing indeed. How about the breaks in between? Also, what is the speed limit for other vehicles in this Nehru ORR? Is two wheelers allowed there?
Sorry I missed your question. There were two-wheelers on the Nehru ORR although I don't know if they will be allowed once the road is completed. Did not see any separate speed limit for other vehicles. I would like to see a minimum speed limit as well because going at 100 - 120 kph, you would not want someone at 30 kph blocking your lane.

Last edited by Technocrat : 25th November 2011 at 22:04. Reason: back to back posts
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