[shreeps]

Guys, I am planning an ashtavinayak darshan trip in a couple of days. Here is the route I am thinking of:

Pune-Sasvad-Jejuri-Morgaon-Supe-Daund-Siddhatek-Solapur Highway-Theur-Ranjangaon-Ozar-Junnar-Lenyadri-Chakan-Pali-Mahad-Pune.

Couple of questions:
1. For the Theur-Ranjangaon leg, do I need to come back all the way inside Pune and then get on to Nagar Road or is there any alternative internal road and if Yes, any idea about the condition of the road?
2. What is the best road for Ranjangaon-Ozar?
3. How is the road condition from Khopoli to Pali nowadays?

Thanks for your help.

[Figopian]

Planning Pune -> Morgaon -> Siddhatek -> Ranjangaon -> Pune this Saturday.
My planned Route is
Pune -> Katraj -> Saswad -> Jejuri -> Morgaon -> Kadegaon -> Patas -> Daund -> Siddhatek

Now for the Siddhatek to Ranjangaon leg, there are 3 options, I am planning to take the one via Shrigonda -> Shirur -> Ranjangaon. Any suggestions?
The other 2 options I believe are via Daund -> kadegaon -> Pargaon -> Shirur and Daund -> Madhe Vadgaon -> Shirur

[ravibhat]

Very nice trip and may GOD bless everyone.

[honeybee]

This seems to be the most recent Ashtavinayak thread, so let me post my queries here:

I am planning to complete the tour in two days. Starting from Dombivli the tentative plan is as follows:

Day 1: Dombivli - Pali - Mahad - Theur - Morgaon - Siddhatek (night halt either at Morgaon or Siddhatek depending on the time of arrival)
Day 2: Siddhatek (if couldn't make it on day 1) - Ranjangaon - Ozar - Lenyadri - Dombivli

The aim is to complete the tour in two days, so no stretching to three days (anyways not possible since the weekend only has one Saturday and one Sunday!). Also early starts are planned (as early as 5/6 in the mornings).

The car is Nano, there would be between 2-4 occupants and possibly one more driver besides me.

The above route plan is from Google maps and Google Earth. By plotting the eight places and connecting them together, it was the best I could come up with, but experts please do advise.

Also since we have to head back home at the end of day 2, most likely the last place in the itinerary will have to be visited in the late afternoon, and climbing Lenyadri on a hot afternoon is not exactly fun, specially after a tiring one and a half day journey. So I am strongly in favour of reversing the above route and start with Lenyadri.

What's the best route from Dombivli to Lenyadri? If we were to take it early morning would there be less traffic?

Any good places to stay at Siddhatek? The occupants would involve women so clean rooms/toilets is a must.

[silverado]

Originally Posted by honeybee

I am planning to complete the tour in two days. Starting from Dombivli the tentative plan is as follows:

What's the best route from Dombivli to Lenyadri? If we were to take it early morning would there be less traffic?

Any good places to stay at Siddhatek? The occupants would involve women so clean rooms/toilets is a must.

Roads leading to Siddhatek were being laid out when i went there in 2011, hopefull they should be in good condition this time.

Doing astavinayak in 2 days from Dombivili will be very tough esp with family.

I would suggest you come down to pune the day before , do Pali and Mahad on the way.

Stay overnight in pune and then start your tour early morning.This will be much more comfortable and you dont have the headache of searching for good hotels since your next night halt can be pune.

But this way Lenyadri would be last in your list and you can reach home via Malshej Ghat

[rulerofsun]

Originally Posted by silverado

Doing astavinayak in 2 days from Dombivili will be very tough esp with family.

I would suggest you come down to pune the day before , do Pali and Mahad on the way.

Stay overnight in pune and then start your tour early morning.This will be much more comfortable and you dont have the headache of searching for good hotels since your next night halt can be pune.

But this way Lenyadri would be last in your list and you can reach home via Malshej Ghat

I completely agree this is the best option. Leave Friday evening and stop.

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by honeybee

I am planning to complete the tour in two days. Starting from Dombivli the tentative plan is as follows:

Day 1: Dombivli - Pali - Mahad - Theur - Morgaon - Siddhatek (night halt either at Morgaon or Siddhatek depending on the time of arrival)
Day 2: Siddhatek (if couldn't make it on day 1) - Ranjangaon - Ozar - Lenyadri - Dombivli

The aim is to complete the tour in two days, so no stretching to three days (anyways not possible since the weekend only has one Saturday and one Sunday!). Also early starts are planned (as early as 5/6 in the mornings).

The car is Nano, there would be between 2-4 occupants and possibly one more driver besides me.

@honeybee,

I would suggest a slightly different itineary, the same one which I did but I had time on hand and completed in 3 days. In you case since it is only 2 days I would suggest
Day 1: Dombivli - Mahad - Pali - Ozar - Lenyadri - Ranjangaon - Theur(night halt either at Pune but closer to Pune to Solapur highway)
Day 2: Morgaon - Siddhatek - Dombivli

Cover as much as possible on day one as most of them are close to each other. Second day start a bit late and do the rest. The only -ve for second day is to reach Dombivli you will have to go through Pune city to hit e-way, may be Pune BHPians can suggest if there is a way out.

[ASHISHPALLOD]

Originally Posted by honeybee

Day 1: Dombivli - Pali - Mahad - Theur - Morgaon - Siddhatek (night halt either at Morgaon or Siddhatek depending on the time of arrival)
Day 2: Siddhatek (if couldn't make it on day 1) - Ranjangaon - Ozar - Lenyadri - Dombivli
Any good places to stay at Siddhatek? The occupants would involve women so clean rooms/toilets is a must.

No hotels for stay at Morgaon and Siddhatek.

I suggest,
day1: dombivali-pali-mahad-eway-pune byepass nh4-kapurhol-ketkawale balaji temple-saswad-jejuri-morgaon-choufula-daund-siddhatek-daund-nh9-theur-pune halt.[ if you are late at siddhatek, halt at daund]
or

day1: dombivali-pali-mahad-pune-theur-morgaon-sidhdhatek-halt at daund.


day2: pune/daund-ranjangaon-shikrapur-chakan-narayngaon-ozar-lenyadri-malshej ghat-murbad-dombivali.


Daund has small lodges not so good.

[silverado]

Originally Posted by ASHISHPALLOD

day1: dombivali-pali-mahad-pune-theur-morgaon-sidhdhatek-halt at daund.

day2: pune/daund-ranjangaon-shikrapur-chakan-narayngaon-ozar-lenyadri-malshej ghat-murbad-dombivali.

Daund has small lodges not so good.

Originally Posted by ghodlur

@honeybee,

In you case since it is only 2 days I would suggest
Day 1: Dombivli - Mahad - Pali - Ozar - Lenyadri - Ranjangaon - Theur(night halt either at Pune but closer to Pune to Solapur highway)
Day 2: Morgaon - Siddhatek - Dombivli

Cover as much as possible on day one as most of them are close to each

In both the above cases, we have to remember that this is in ideal scenario wherein Darshan will not take in more than 30 minutes.

This depends on the week of the day you are visiting.

Also you have to keep atleast 2 hours for Lenyadri Darshan.
@ghodlur, though your plan is good, but that means you end up reaching very late at theur and looking for stay options would be difficult.

@ashishbhau , Agreed Daund does not have good stay facilities.

[honeybee]

At Ranjangaon, you can pay to get a quick darshan. I am sure there must another place or two out of these eight where the same is available. Also places like Mahad shouldn't take much time (going by the reports I have heard so far). Also if we take Lenyadri first, we are likely to meet less crowds (just my guess). Also we shall be travelling in the opposite direction of what the tour operators take, so it might give us an edge.

The reason why I am against the idea of starting with Pali / Mahad and ending with Lenyadri is I don't travel by Malshej route (have only done it once or twice in my life, that too with a large group and in a bus for monsoon picnics). I don't want to risk a late evening/night drive through it. Ending the trip at Pali/Mahad would be familiar e-way territory and even if we started at 9 in the night from Mahad, it would be a breeze to reach home. Plus support options on e-way cannot be compared with those in Malshej.

The other big reason is, ending the trip at Lenyadri means climbing the mountain in the afternoon and after a gruelling one and half day's trip. It might be better to tackle this in the early morning at the start of the trip when spirits are high and minds and bodies fresh.

I couldn't make it this weekend, but have rescheduled it for next week end. The tentative itinerary would be

Day 1: Lenyadri - Ozar - Ranjangaon - Theur - Siddhatek (and if can't make it to Siddhatek then halt at Daund).
Day 2: Siddhatek - Morgaon, Pali/Mahad (last two in any sequence comfortable. I am open to driving the Pali - Mahad route twice, so that's insignificant.

If Daund is unsuitable, we could switch Theur and Ranjangaon and then halt at Ranjangaon or Narayangaon.

Still have a week to finalize this!

[honeybee]

Here's route 1:

Leg 1: Dombivli - Kalyan - Murbad - Saralgaon - Malshej - Kolewadi - Dingore - Golegaon (near Junnar) - Lenyadri (130? kms)
Leg 2: Lenyadri - Golegaon - Ozar (here again there are two roads, but I am guessing both are equally good (or bad) (15? kms)
Leg 3: Ozar - Narayangaon - Manchar - Peth - Varude - Pabal - Dhamari - Ganegaon - Ranjangaon (75? kms)
Leg 4: Ranjangaon - Karegaon - Shirur - Dev Daithan - Dhavalgaon - Ukkadgaon - Belwandi - Shrigonda - Pedgaon - Siddhatek (95? kms)
Leg 5: Siddhatek - Arvi - Daund - Kurkumbh - Patas - Kedagaon - Deool Gada - Supe - Morgaon (75? kms)
Leg 6: Morgaon - Supe - Deool Gada - Kedagaon - Yewat - Uruli Kanchan - Kunjirwadi - Theur (62? kms)
Leg 7: Theur - Hadapsar - Pune - Khopoli - Mahad (125? kms)
Leg 8: Mahad - Golewadi - Parali - Pali (40? kms)
Leg 9: Pali - Parali - Golewadi - Khopoli - Shil - Dombivli (100? kms)

I have attached a screenshot of Google Earth to show the various points and the connecting routes. There may be alternative routes in some places which I may have missed.

For reasons already mentioned I would like to start with Lenyadri and end with either Mahad or Pali.
One alternative would be Ozar - Theur - Ranjangaon - Siddhatek - Morgaon, however going by the Google Earth map, I prefer Theur on the way back from Morgaon. This way if we run out of time, we could safely camp at Pune.

The whole itinerary seems to be under 800kms.
At average speeds of 60kmph, the driving time would be approximately 14 hours (rounded up).
Providing for about half an hour at each place would take another 4 hours.
Two breaks for lunches and around six to eight for tea/snacks would take another 4 hours.
We could target about 12 hours each day between start to end on the day, so a total of 24 hours.
So I would say leaving at six in the morning, this trip looks doable.

There are hitches: finding parking at various places, unplanned halts for punctures or refuelling, longer queues at a particular place or traffic jams en route. However overall if we manage the time well, these obstacles should not pose a great problem.

What say, gurus?

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by honeybee

So I would say leaving at six in the morning, this trip looks doable.
There are hitches: finding parking at various places, unplanned halts for punctures or refuelling, longer queues at a particular place or traffic jams en route. However overall if we manage the time well, these obstacles should not pose a great problem.

Looks like definitely doable. My only suggestion is from Ranjangaon you can do Theur which is very near and from Theur you can hit the Pune-Solapur Highway to reach Siddhatek and way back do Morgaon.
You need to keep in some buffer time for the journey as well as tat the temples. Keep some time for breaks also coz out of 24 hrs, you will be driving for atleast 18 hrs. All the best. May the Lord be with you.

[honeybee]

Yes, that's a good suggestion. However, it's too close to Pune, so if I visited it on my way back, I wouldn't have to go back and forth from there. An alternative, expanding on your suggestion, would be from Ranjangaon towards the Pune - Solapur highway. We could then halt somewhere en route, visit Siddhatek in the morning and then complete the remaining tour on the same day.

However, on this route, I think we should be able to reach Siddhatek and maybe be back in Daund or so for a night halt.

Any details on the hotels in/around the area? If there's a good hotel, I don't mind if it's en route and not at the place we are visiting, so for e.g. if there's a good hotel on the Pune Solapur road between Siddhatek to Morgaon, we could complete Siddhatek and then reach the hotel late in the evening/night.

Update:
Found an alternative to Leg 4: Ranjangaon to Siddhatek. Ranjangaon - Shikrapur - Talegaon Dhamdhere - Patethan - Rahu - Pimpalgaon - Delawadi - Pargaon and from there to Kedagaon to join the Pune - Solapur highway.
Theur is under 50kms from Ranjangaon. So if we reach late at Ranjangaon, it would be a good idea to follow your advice and reach Theur first. Then either halt thereabouts or continue onto the Pune Solapur road and halt en route. Next day we could reach Siddhatek, then Morgaon and from Morgaon proceed straight to Jejuri - Pune or so. Need to check this part on Google Earth.