[Dieselritzer]

My Friend,
Those are some lovely pictures and a good writeup. Solo drives are truly amazing. Its a way of meditation for me where I can focus on my thoughts & just be at my own pace. Many a times I dont even put the music on and just enjoy all the sounds and the maahol around me.

One thing i have observed, Karnataka has some stunning roads. May it be their highway or their internal roads, the quality of tarmac is amazing. Something we folks living in Maharashtra can only dream off. Our state would be in the top 3 states to have the most pathetic roads in our country.

Thanks for sharing the lovely pictures.

[Fateh Salim]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

... and how you would like to take a U-turn and take that last corner again because you loved it so much.

Sadly, I do the same thing, but in GTA (Video Game Series) as you do in real life. I wish I had the ability to go on spontaneous drives like these. Thank you for the post; it has been a tremendous source of inspiration for me as a young college student .

Aside from the Udemy classes, I'd like to highlight India's first and only custom-designed Photography Institute, which is located in the Nigiris. Anyone interested in pushing their photography to the next level should definitely check out their website.

I have only a basic DSLR setup with kit lenses: Nikon D3500 with Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6VR and Nikon 70-300mm f4.5-6.3VR lenses.

I'm guessing you're using the same camera and lens combo that you used on your Kabini trip. What degree of credibility do you have with the entire set? Will you suggest it to someone like me who lives in Ooty and enjoys cars, jeeps, and the local scenery?

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by kiran_aithal

WoW!... that was a good drive and Photography too.... The red beast with the lush green background looks amazing. Thanks Dr.AD.. And good to know that all COVID norms were followed in crowded places...

Thank you very much.

Now that it has rained/been raining so much in and around Bangalore, this inspires me to go out on a long drive. May be towards a hill fort ...

This is indeed a lovely weather to drive around in the outskirts of Bangalore. Luckily there are so many scenic routes and places within a few hours reach from Bangalore. Hope you get a good drive.

Originally Posted by OffRoadFun

Beautiful pictures and scenic trip.
I will add this to my wishlist.
I have not driven much on this highway. Seems so lush green and you have captured excellent shots.

Thank you very much.

Also, was amazed to see 320d returning 15.9kmpl.
It seems to be an extremely refined engine, powerful (190HP if I am not wrong) and yet so efficient.
Engines have come a long way!

Oh yes, this engine is very nice. It has 188hp (190ps) with 400Nm of torque. That is more than enough for my power needs. And yet it gives good mileage. More than the mileage by itself, range matters to me. I hate to search around for good fuel stations when I am out in the rural areas. A car running low on fuel is the last thing I want when I am touring remote areas or just out there having fun. Also, I do a lot of long highway drives such as Bangalore to Pune. In all such cases, range is more important to me. And this car easily gives me 800km of actual useful range. Theoretically, I have even seen a predicted range of 970km in my MID. This is indeed a great car for these long highway runs.

However, I will not necessarily call the engine "refined". It is powerful, has very good torque, loves to be driven hard, has plenty of punch on the highway drives, it is also efficient, but it still not refined. It does have a bit of diesel clatter. This is my first diesel car and maybe that is why I can hear it. So maybe it is refined by diesel standards. But it is not refined in absolute terms.

Originally Posted by deepfreak15

Amazing travelogue Doc, you, your car and camera are made for each other. When are we doing our red and blue photoshoot and when are you taking me on that monsoon trip?

Thank you very much, Deepak. Yes our drive and photoshoot is pending. I am also eagerly waiting for that. Let us coordinate and finalize something for one of the coming weekends. August would be a great time for us to go out and have a photoshoot with the red and the blue! Looking forward to it

Originally Posted by Stribog

I loved that pic over your lunch spot, the dark grey clouds looked like something was cooking in Mordor!

Thank you. Yes, I also liked that lunch time picture. Somehow that dark cloud in the background made that place and that setting look quite nice. And luckily, there was no crowd at the lunch place.

Also you are Don Quixote...except the windmills are real.

Hahaha. Thank you. That made me laugh :-)

[tilt]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

*SNIP*

This was a solo drive. This was an impromptu drive. And there was neither a destination nor a plan.

*SNIP*

So, basically just another Tuesday in your case

Yes it has been a while since you did the "wherever the wheels choose to go, there go I" thingy! I always enjoyed reading about those drives of yours, and finally, here you are with another such drive!

Many of us just wistfully dream of doing such things and you're actually doing it. I live life vicariously through you

Cheers and more power to you man!

[androdev]

Lovely writeup @Dr.AD! I have been missing these roads. This thread is the inspiration I need to shake off my covid/lockdown blues.

[indrangiri]

Nice write up on your solo day drive Dr. AD and good photography too !!. Hope our team at "Windows Down Motoring" is planning on a next weekend drive sometime soon and give us an opportunity to meet up !!

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by Dieselritzer

Those are some lovely pictures and a good writeup. Solo drives are truly amazing. Its a way of meditation for me where I can focus on my thoughts & just be at my own pace. Many a times I dont even put the music on and just enjoy all the sounds and the maahol around me.

Thank you very much. I totally agree with you. Solo drives are like meditations for me too. Music does not matter to me. Sometime I listen to some music, sometimes I totally forget it and just listen to my car. Either way, just being out there alone and just driving down a road in your own thoughts and your own mood is a great meditation. I always come back refreshed!

One thing i have observed, Karnataka has some stunning roads. May it be their highway or their internal roads, the quality of tarmac is amazing. Something we folks living in Maharashtra can only dream off.

Totally agree again. I am originally from Pune and have traveled a lot in Maharashtra too. And I love driving there too. I love eating vada pav and misal pav while driving around in Maharashtra. But such road qualities and such scenic beauty (all around the year!) as we see in Karnataka or Kerala is hard to find in Maharastra drives. Of course Konkan is an exception. Konkan drives are always lovely. I love driving around in Konkan in the monsoon.

Originally Posted by Fateh Salim

Sadly, I do the same thing, but in GTA (Video Game Series) as you do in real life. I wish I had the ability to go on spontaneous drives like these. Thank you for the post; it has been a tremendous source of inspiration for me as a young college student

Thank you very much for your kind words.

Aside from the Udemy classes, I'd like to highlight India's first and only custom-designed Photography Institute, which is located in the Nigiris. Anyone interested in pushing their photography to the next level should definitely check out their website.

Thank you for this information. I will surely check this out.

I'm guessing you're using the same camera and lens combo that you used on your Kabini trip.

Yes, I have the same camera and the lenses. However, now I have added a third lens - Nikon DX 35mm f1.8G prime lens! This is a lovely lens. This is great for wide aperture shots with narrow depth of field. The lens sharpness and optical qualities are great. Further, with the 1.5 crop factor of my APS-C sensor, this lens becomes effectively 52.5mm for me. So this is my "nifty fifty" prime lens now. Check out the reviews which are all highly positive for this lens.

What degree of credibility do you have with the entire set? Will you suggest it to someone like me who lives in Ooty and enjoys cars, jeeps, and the local scenery?

For someone like me, this gear is very good. I do not think my skills are yet at a level where I could fully utilize the capabilities of my camera to the limit. No, not yet. For now, it is still my skills that is the limiting factor, not the camera. Maybe someday I will reach a point where I would say now I know how to use this camera to the best possible results, but that is not good enough and I need a better camera. But till then, this camera is great.

So it depends on what your skill levels and interests are. For the kind of photography you mentioned (Jeep, Landscapes etc), this is a very good camera.

This camera has the same sensor as many more expensive Nikon DSLRs. Even the lenses are the same. Where this camera is a bit basic is in autofocus. The autofocus is only 9 point autofocus and is a bit slow. Therefore, this would not be a great camera for action photography or in general where you would need fast autofocus. But for still photography (the kind of photography I do and the kind you mentioned), autofocus speed is hardly a problem. I take my time to compose the frame and choose the appropriate focus point depending on the composition, focus carefully, and then shoot. If you are willing to do that, then this is a good camera.

Further, some niceties such as touch screen and WiFi connectivity are missing. But I do not need those. I am fine with using the dial pad instead of touch screen. And I am fine with using a cable to transfer the photos to my laptop.

Originally Posted by tilt

Many of us just wistfully dream of doing such things and you're actually doing it. I live life vicariously through you

Cheers and more power to you man!

Thank you very much, tilt!

Actually it is a funny paradox. I would love to do such drives with friends like you, who love driving and will appreciate the roads and the experiences (and we do many drives together and I love those). However, the moment we have more than one car in the group, such random drives are impossible. You can not just pull over and stop because you suddenly had an "aha moment" at some location, or take any arbitrary turn just because you saw a nice black tarmac and green hills somewhere. The other car will get confused if one car suddenly disappears from the scene :-)

So the paradox is that although I often feel that this would be a great experience to share with my driving buddies, the very act of having driving buddies there would make the experience impossible.

This is precisely why I love both solo drives and group drives, separately.

Originally Posted by androdev

Lovely writeup @Dr.AD! I have been missing these roads. This thread is the inspiration I need to shake off my covid/lockdown blues.

Thank you very much androdev. I was in the same boat, and was missing all these roads. So just decided to shake off my blues one fine morning and took off. Current weather is as good as it gets for enjoying some relaxed monsoon drive. And you have some lovely set of wheels in your garage. I would encourage you to take your favorite machine and set out for a monsoon drive. And please share photos with us. Looking forward to that.

Originally Posted by indrangiri

Nice write up on your solo day drive Dr. AD and good photography too !!. Hope our team at "Windows Down Motoring" is planning on a next weekend drive sometime soon and give us an opportunity to meet up !!

Thank you very much. Yes, I am in touch with our friends at "Windows Down Motoring" and I am also eagerly waiting for their next drive. Would love to meet you soon on one of those drives.

[asethi]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Th yellow circle shows the temple I was thinking of driving to. That temple has some great windmills views. The windmills are located all around that area. However, as you can judge from the map, there is no big road (at least I could not find one) that goes to the temple. All those small roads are the ones I tried (and Google asked me take) and they turned out to be the narrow village roads where I got stuck.

Had a similar experience with Google maps while visiting this place last Dec. I wanted to experience the sunset from the hilltop but managed to reach the temple post sunset, thanks to Google maps.
While coming back, a local guided me to alternate route and it was so easy to hit the highway from there. One will need to continue on Mangalore highway for approx. 22kms more than Google maps suggestion and then take a diversion to the temple. This 8km road will take you direct to hill top with marvelous views!

Follow the route on the map to reach the temple directly, and the road is very much drivable.



This is the road that connects the hilltop with highway:

https://youtu.be/goCbZn9OtSo

This was the post-sunset view from the top, phone cam couldn't capture the actual scene but it was really good:

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by asethi

Follow the route on the map to reach the temple directly, and the road is very much drivable.

Oh great! Thank you very much. I will certainly try this road the next time.

The road Google Maps made me take was the middle road in your map - the option with 23.2km distance. And once I was in that vicinity, no matter what I tried, Google Maps would not bring me out of the myriad of narrow lanes there. That longer road you showed was not even given as an option when I checked. It still does not give me that option if I check again. Unless some person with knowledge of the local road conditions suggests this option, it would be impossible for others to guess purely looking at the maps.

This was one of the worst experiences of Google Maps for me since I started using Google Maps for navigation around 2013.

Thanks again for providing this key information and solving what was a puzzle for me.

[DVK]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

The Surprises; Good and Bad

====

Those are some amazing roads @Dr.AD I think SH121 will be on my list of "Roads to drive in India" for sure. Your post just gave me some inspiration to go for a weekend drive/shoot.

Also, I believe you the lot you ran into is The Speed Society group. There are some good pictures of their drives on Instagram, same for the brilliant manual Porsche 911! The owner does not shy away from road trips and it's quite a sight to see it on the move.

[BackstraightBoy]

A very heartwarming travelogue, Dr. AD! Unplanned trips and spontaneous getaways are indeed charming! The 'roadblock' really cracked me up! Can totally relate to the predicament caused by Google Maps! But really, kudos to you for being willing to take your 320 to country roads; I'm certain that not all do! Wishing you many more such extemporaneous pleasures with your lovely 3!

By the way, have you shot these pictures raw (I hope you do!)? I ask because some of them can be processed better, to retain more highlight detail and extract more out of the shadows, especially in the landscape images. Also, the contrast/dehaze/clarity is a little aggressive in some of them. I'd be happy to reprocess some of these for you, if you wish and permit. Please PM me if you'd like that.

[int3]

A nice travelogue Dr.AD. Thank you for sharing the location map. Looking forward to checking these places soon, my ride will be on my bike though.

[FamilyTraveller]

extremely interesting and very well written. Just curious, with the low ground clearance did you have any issue driving through the country roads?

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by DVK

Those are some amazing roads @Dr.AD I think SH121 will be on my list of "Roads to drive in India" for sure. Your post just gave me some inspiration to go for a weekend drive/shoot.

Thank you very much. Yes, SH121 is a lovely scenic road to drive on.

Also, I believe you the lot you ran into is The Speed Society group. There are some good pictures of their drives on Instagram, same for the brilliant manual Porsche 911! The owner does not shy away from road trips and it's quite a sight to see it on the move.

True. When I shared those pictures with my friends, they immediately told me that it was some Speed Society drive meet. Great to see these cars doing proper road trips.

Originally Posted by BackstraightBoy

A very heartwarming travelogue, Dr. AD! Unplanned trips and spontaneous getaways are indeed charming! The 'roadblock' really cracked me up! Can totally relate to the predicament caused by Google Maps! But really, kudos to you for being willing to take your 320 to country roads; I'm certain that not all do! Wishing you many more such extemporaneous pleasures with your lovely 3!

Thank you very much. I use my 320 for many rural/country drives in addition to my long interstate highway drives. That is my primary vehicle and is sort of my all-in-one vehicle. I just love to drive her around no matter where, and so far she is happily doing her job regardless of the conditions. It is a very faithful machine!

By the way, have you shot these pictures raw (I hope you do!)?

Yes, I shoot in RAW. The files are in .NEF (Nikon RAW) format.

I ask because some of them can be processed better, to retain more highlight detail and extract more out of the shadows, especially in the landscape images. Also, the contrast/dehaze/clarity is a little aggressive in some of them.

Thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions. I am really impressed by how you precisely recognized what I did. Yes, I am often guilty of using dehaze/contrast a bit too aggressively. I need to get better at processing, and a few more experiments/iterations will be required before I get better. Also agree that the shadows in the landscape images could have been improved a bit.

I'd be happy to reprocess some of these for you, if you wish and permit. Please PM me if you'd like that.

That is very nice of you. I would love to see what you do with these pictures and would love to learn from you. Sure, I will PM you and share the .NEF files. Thanks again!

Originally Posted by int3

A nice travelogue Dr.AD. Thank you for sharing the location map. Looking forward to checking these places soon, my ride will be on my bike though.

Thank you very much. These roads will be great on a bike, and I am sure you will have a lot of fun on a bike there. Just be careful on NH75 though.

Originally Posted by FamilyTraveller

extremely interesting and very well written. Just curious, with the low ground clearance did you have any issue driving through the country roads?

Thank you very much. Regarding ground clearance, no, there were no issues at all in this drive. I have been driving this car in all sorts of roads and by now I have got a hang of how to manage bad roads in this car. The GC is not too low, and the car manages it well as long as I am careful. In this particular drive, I did not face any terrible road conditions. What I faced was very narrow roads, and roads that passed through villages and were blocked by objects placed on the road (such as that bullock cart). But ground clearance was not an issue.

[fundagenie]

That was a really wonderful solo trip Dr. AD.
Being in Bangalore, with no drives is making me also totally itchy. But considering the crowds at some of the usual drive haunts, places like these are really a boon for a safe trip.

Just wanted to clarify a few points wrt the route you took vs the one shared by Asethi. So does that route also cover the SH121 and the dreamy spot with the waterbody and windmills. Would be great if you could share the google maps route you took and give some indication on the narrow road to avoid.

Originally Posted by procrj

Ended up in a similar situation the first time I was headed for the windmills + temple. There is an easier route to get here from SH121, do check maps. Also looks like you missed the small check dam that is a beautiful pitstop.

Procrj, appreciate if you could share this route. Or is it the same one Asethi had shared?


FundaG