[laluks]

Day 2: 12th July 2014

I drove all the way to Baga, the roads were in shambles. Some storm water drain construction was on. I normally park a bit after St. Anthony's shack. But I was in for a surprise, the road was dug up. I had to take an U turn in the rain, with the impatient scooter fellows jamming all around me. Determined I took a sharp turn, and THUD

Seems Civvy's front left wheel fell in a drain. I thought we had it, and have to lift the car out. But before doing that, I tried to raise the rpm a bit on first gear and try. Civvy never leaves me in trouble, Civvy climbs out of the drain in style and we are off. We finally found that Baga was getting a parking lot, and went and parked Civvy there. The front bumpers had come out, I just pulled it back into the clips and it looked all right. The plastic covers below the sump, was hanging down, pulled that also back in place. Tried driving around for any unusual sounds, none were there except for a strange sweet grunt. I figured it out to be the resonator box, and yes indeed it was. Pulled it back in place, everything seemed to be fine.

Once Civvy was alright and secured, we went to St Anthonys Shack.


Baga was crowded though it was monsoon




St Anthonys was next to Brittos.




Everything has become expensive, at least thrice. Any ways, I was not bothered, since I had found a better alternate to Goa already. Will write about that some time, for now let us stick to Goa!


By 19:00 hours we decided to call it a day and drove back to the resort. Some where after we joined in from Calangute road, we got in to a royal traffic jam. We waited and waited , it was not clearing. Finally we started to move, and I drove straight to the resort we saw in the afternoon to see if the convoy was back. I was prepared to take another resort if we did not find them there.

A liitle later we found that the jam was indeed due to the cars in the convoy, parked on the already narrow Candolim Road. The rains added to the misery. But since I was not a part of the convoy, and had already crossed half of the parked vehicles, I had to take the turn to the resort much to the annoyance of a member in convoy! He honked furiously at me, Sorry buddy, all I could do was to take that turn to avoid another pile up behind me for the Goan Crowd, who never cared what we were up to!

On reaching the resort with no parking, we realised that indeed we were right, they had an arrangement with the next resort. I drove straight in and was guided to the back of the resort. I was shocked when I saw cars parked in front, back and to the sides. I was not expecting this, but was ok since I was not in a hurry the next day to drive out. I can wait till all of them leave and take my car.

A little less than a 100Kms for the day


We got the keys to the room. Unlike the previous night, it was a small room and only two beds were in place though the room had four names in the list. Unexpected again. DDrive got himself a bed from the ground floor carried it all the way to the top. It was already 20:30 by then.

Just before we were about to settle, we got a call saying dinner is served on fourth floor. We went to fourth floor, there was no dinner. We went down to the reception only to be told that the dinner is at the next resort.

We went to the fourth floor, Fauji was compering the show. I caught hold of the OTeam guy and told him how he had confused us. He was obviously oblivious of what he had done! People were chilling out, dinner was on. We were also entertained by a few songs from DDrive too. Chatted with a few common friends, had dinner and bailed out from the rest of the night!

Said bye to HVK, since he had plans to drive out early. We reached our room by 22:30 and retired for the night.

[Ddrive]

Was itching to post some clicks here, and hope Im not spoiling the flow of this TL.
Thanks Lalu sir for permitting me to do this.


Boarding complete, and the captain in cockpit of the coveted Civvy, ready to take off.
Me feeling excited on the night of 10th July 2014 at 11 pm, moment before exiting Bangalore.



On NH4, our first break somewhere before Chitradurga.

Originally Posted by laluks

DDrive up to some serious clicks
Continued...

.. and that serious click was this



A view of Dudhsagar Spa Resort, where we stayed on the night of 11th July.

[laluks]

Day 3: 13th July 2014

We woke up leisurely by around 09:00 again. Through the window we could see that most of the cars in the convoy had left. Freshened up and came down to Civvy.

It was Sr. PPG's birthday, called her and wished her the same. She was upset that I was away. I told her I should be back by night, we can have a cake and watch the football finals. So the deal was done and I started to check Civvy for any battle scars from last day's fall in the drain.

I saw a lot of muck accumulated in the left brake pads, both front and rear. I took the car from behind the resort to the front and parked at a convenient location to check. I had to take the car in reverse from where I parked till the front, this kind of sucked more muck inside the pads. I could hear screeching noises while braking. On inspection I found the scenario had started to score both the discs.

I rushed through a lousy breakfast that was made available, and rushed to Civvy. I removed the rear wheel and exposed the pads, one of the calliper pin was stuck. I removed the muck and washed the pads with water and checked. The rear was fine.

Then I removed the front wheel and checked. It accumulated a lot of muck. Removed the pads, and washed them with water and using a file cleaned the surface and put back. I also took the opportunity to grease the pins since it was accessible. After fitting the front pads and checking for the behaviour, I was satisfied that we can take Civvy for the next drives.

It was already 11:00 by then. Ddrive wanted to drive back via south Goa. Since the convoy went that side, we decided to take an exit via Chorla, Tillari or Amboli ghats back to Bangalore.

Finally we decided to come back via Tillari, since HVK convoy were mesmerised about the drive.

We reached a bridge around 13:00 hours


I have a FB page where I connect to non TBHP member readers.

I am using Mr. Balan Kodathvalappil's description on my page for this picture. Nothing could have expressed the scene better than these words

"Far away, the sombre sky is embracing the green trees and under the tar road, there is dribbling river."


Civvy on the bridge


We moved on, rains were intermittent but heavy.

Continued....

[laluks]

Day 3: 13th July 2014

Soon we reached a check post. The friendly guy there wanted to search the car. We let him search the car as he pleased. He was amused with my sixth wheel in the boot and he was so sure to find something in the spare area. He was shocked to find the fifth wheel there . By now he was getting a hang of what breed we are, he sat in the front seat and gives a comment "Arre wah!! Sleeper Coach". We all had a mighty laugh over it.

He then checked the papers, found everything in order. He then warned me roads are bad with steep climbs, the first two are difficult. He gives an advise, if you cannot climb please come back, I will put you through Amboli ghats which is beautiful. I told him we have already been on that route. he then spotted the GPS and says to himself "yeh GPS leke aaya hain, inko to sab malum hoga!!"

He then waved us off, a pleasant interaction and a nice guy.

We stopped before the first climb


There was a route which went to a power house


Guys Posing


The roads, you can see lose rubble


There was this board!?


The left goes to check post and the right to the power house


We moved on and stopped at another place for some clicks


The place was beautiful


It was raining heavily at times


Roads were patchy


Ddrive at work


We stopped at another place


Any place will look good during rains


We then stopped by a meadow overlooking the valley


Enjoying the rains


Can you see a road going down?


One more click


Suddenly there was a heavy down pour and we decided to moved on.

Continued...

[laluks]

Day 3: 13th July 2014

We stopped at a cross road where we saw this board, we needed Chai!!


We found a stinky emu wandering on the streets


I wanted to make the emu famous










Ddrive also decided to make the emu famous


We finished chai and were about to leave when this bus caught my attention.

Belgaum Sawanthawadi via Tillari - what a route!


This place seems to be a mandatory stop for chai! All buses stopped there


He gets some banana chips for lunch!!


We left there around 14:15 hours towards Belgaum.

Continued...

[manim]

Originally Posted by laluks

I removed the rear wheel and exposed the pads, one of the calliper pin was stuck. I removed the muck and washed the pads with water and checked. The rear was fine.

Then I removed the front wheel and checked. It accumulated a lot of muck. Removed the pads, and washed them with water and using a file cleaned the surface and put back. I also took the opportunity to grease the pins since it was accessible. After fitting the front pads and checking for the behaviour, I was satisfied that we can take Civvy for the next drives.

I thought that removing the brake-pads and lubricating the pins was a job only a trained specialist could do.

Is it that easy or did you get trained to do it beforehand?
And did you carry special tools for this job?

It is always a joy to read your travelogues!

[laluks]

Day 3: 13th July 2014

Some where in Tillari ghats we completed 1000KMs for the drive


It was 22 degrees and raining


On exiting the ghats we stopped


Every where it was green


Seemed to be an industrial area


Ddrive in action


What monsoons can do to the surroundings


All green and clean


We moved on


We stopped for a late lunch at Sankam, Belgaum at 16:00 hours


Continued...

[laluks]

Day 3: 13th July 2014

After a good late lunch at Sankam, we started our journey to Bangalore by 17:00 hours. I wanted to reach Bangalore in time so that Ddrive can catch a bus to Chennai. What followed was a passionate drive to Bangalore.

Somewhere in the two lane road between Hubli and Dharwad, my team mates told me that I have overtaken Jeep Girl. This set me thinking, when did the HVK convoy reach the highway? My thought was by the plan I overheard, they should at least be some 100 to 150 Kms ahead of us.

The passionate drive continued, I over took some cars which were fully occupied, with all except the driver punching something on their smart phones. I inferred they were from monsoon drive updating status's.

Ddrive had another choice of joining a car which came from Chennai to the drive. My impression was that they were ahead. So I asked Ddrive to check their whereabouts. I was thinking to request them to stop by Tumkur Kamath so that I can drop Ddrive there.

We were by then some 100Kms to Tumkur.

On enquiring their whereabouts, they were little surprised that we were nearing Tumkur. They were atleast 150 Kms behind us, where as my thougts were they should be ahead!! We were in Tumkur by 22:00 hours and broke the journey at Kamaths for dinner and to spend some time waiting for the Chennai car to arrive. By 23:00 dinner was done and we checked the whereabouts of Chennai car, it would take them under an hour to reach Kamath.

We bid goodbye to Ddrive and drove towards Bangalore.

Somewhere Civvy clocked 110K on Odo.


After an hour Ddrive messaged that he joined the Chennai car and they started their drive to Chennai.

By the time I dropped all and reached home it was just nearing 01:00. When I parked Civvy, it showed a total of 1620KMs for the drive.

As promised Sr. PPG was there watching football finals. I too sat with her to watch it. I saw the first half. What a boring match. I again wished her happy birthday in person and went to my room and crashed.


Looking back the fun was entirely due to the rains and the team. Tillari was nothing spectacular, its just another narrow hill road getting its charm in rains and Goa was crowded.

The End

[laluks]

Originally Posted by manim

I thought that removing the brake-pads and lubricating the pins was a job only a trained specialist could do.

Is it that easy or did you get trained to do it beforehand?
And did you carry special tools for this job?

It is always a joy to read your travelogues!

You will need Ring Spanner and Normal Spanner to open up the calliper pins. Then you will need a file or sand paper to clean the pads, then you will need a c clamp and a good nose plyer if you are replacing old pads with new.

Your will need grease for lubricating calliper pins and moly grease for the new break pads to seat them.

I normally do it myself. Once if you do it will come naturally to you next time. But is a messy job, you have to dirty your hands.

I will try and post with pictures of all the tools and steps in our Civvy thread

[venkatt1800]

Originally Posted by laluks

Day 2: 12th July 2014

I drove all the way to Baga, the roads were in shambles. Some storm water drain construction was on. I normally park a bit after St. Anthony's shack. But I was in for a surprise, the road was dug up. I had to take an U turn in the rain, with the impatient scooter fellows jamming all around me. Determined I took a sharp turn, and THUD

Seems Civvy's front left wheel fell in a drain. I thought we had it, and have to lift the car out. But before doing that, I tried to raise the rpm a bit on first gear and try. Civvy never leaves me in trouble, Civvy climbs out of the drain in style and we are off. We finally found that Baga was getting a parking lot, and went and parked Civvy there. The front bumpers had come out, I just pulled it back into the clips and it looked all right. The plastic covers below the sump, was hanging down, pulled that also back in place. Tried driving around for any unusual sounds, none were there except for a strange sweet grunt. I figured it out to be the resonator box, and yes indeed it was. Pulled it back in place, everything seemed to be fine.

Once Civvy was alright and secured, we went to St Anthonys Shack.
Attachment 1268290

Baga was crowded though it was monsoon
Attachment 1268291

Attachment 1268292

St Anthonys was next to Brittos.
Attachment 1268293

Attachment 1268294

Everything has become expensive, at least thrice. Any ways, I was not bothered, since I had found a better alternate to Goa already. Will write about that some time, for now let us stick to Goa!


By 19:00 hours we decided to call it a day and drove back to the resort. Some where after we joined in from Calangute road, we got in to a royal traffic jam. We waited and waited , it was not clearing. Finally we started to move, and I drove straight to the resort we saw in the afternoon to see if the convoy was back. I was prepared to take another resort if we did not find them there.

A liitle later we found that the jam was indeed due to the cars in the convoy, parked on the already narrow Candolim Road. The rains added to the misery. But since I was not a part of the convoy, and had already crossed half of the parked vehicles, I had to take the turn to the resort much to the annoyance of a member in convoy! He honked furiously at me, Sorry buddy, all I could do was to take that turn to avoid another pile up behind me for the Goan Crowd, who never cared what we were up to!

On reaching the resort with no parking, we realised that indeed we were right, they had an arrangement with the next resort. I drove straight in and was guided to the back of the resort. I was shocked when I saw cars parked in front, back and to the sides. I was not expecting this, but was ok since I was not in a hurry the next day to drive out. I can wait till all of them leave and take my car.

A little less than a 100Kms for the day
Attachment 1268295

We got the keys to the room. Unlike the previous night, it was a small room and only two beds were in place though the room had four names in the list. Unexpected again. DDrive got himself a bed from the ground floor carried it all the way to the top. It was already 20:30 by then.

Just before we were about to settle, we got a call saying dinner is served on fourth floor. We went to fourth floor, there was no dinner. We went down to the reception only to be told that the dinner is at the next resort.

We went to the fourth floor, Fauji was compering the show. I caught hold of the OTeam guy and told him how he had confused us. He was obviously oblivious of what he had done! People were chilling out, dinner was on. We were also entertained by a few songs from DDrive too. Chatted with a few common friends, had dinner and bailed out from the rest of the night!

Said bye to HVK, since he had plans to drive out early. We reached our room by 22:30 and retired for the night.

As usual, a terrific log from start-to finish, Lalu sir ! Read it in one gol. Very few people complete these sort of thrilling, off-the-beaten path drives so frequently and successfully. I don't think there is any Ghat area left in India which your Civvy hasn't treaded on. A very reliable & trusted companion it certainly is. Honda India definitely owes a debt to you ! Tillari Ghat(I have never heard of this name, before this travelogue) and the surroundings look so gorgeous in the rains ! By the way, can't wait to have a peek at that "Better Alternate to GOA". Is that the next T-log coming up ?

[laluks]

Originally Posted by venkatt1800

As usual, a terrific log from start-to finish, Lalu sir ! Read it in one gol. Very few people complete these sort of thrilling, off-the-beaten path drives so frequently and successfully. I don't think there is any Ghat area left in India which your Civvy hasn't treaded on. A very reliable & trusted companion it certainly is. Honda India definitely owes a debt to you ! Tillari Ghat(I have never heard of this name, before this travelogue) and the surroundings look so gorgeous in the rains ! By the way, can't wait to have a peek at that "Better Alternate to GOA". Is that the next T-log coming up ?

Thanks Venkatt
There are still a lot of places where I have not been

Wish Honda India gifts me the new generation Civvy when it gets launched



I don't know whether that is the next T Log, but is certainly on the list to be penned.

[Ddrive]

Originally Posted by laluks

I normally do it myself. Once if you do it will come naturally to you next time. But is a messy job, you have to dirty your hands. I will try and post with pictures of all the tools and steps in our Civvy thread

We were all watching & wondering dumbstruck as to how meticulously you did this job with expertise all by yourself single-handedly and how deeply you care for your Civvy.

[laluks]

Originally Posted by Ddrive

We were all watching & wondering dumbstruck as to how meticulously you did this job with expertise all by yourself single-handedly and how deeply you care for your Civvy.

Thanks Ddrive for the pictures. Sometimes you have to do a few things for the safety ahead. The thought of nearly 600+ kms for the day made me do the check right away

Route for Day 2


Route for Day 3


The GPS Trail for the drive
Track 220.kml

[sumeethaldankar]

Laluks sir may i ask what kind of GPS device you use ?

I was also wondering , with the 6th wheel as another spare was there enough room in the boot for your luggage as the civic has a shallow boot.

[laluks]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

Laluks sir may i ask what kind of GPS device you use ?

I was also wondering , with the 6th wheel as another spare was there enough room in the boot for your luggage as the civic has a shallow boot.

I used to use Mio before the android days. Now android phone with google does most of my GPS needs, the phone has a dedicated GPS sensor.

The sixth one takes away some space, but mostly we carry shoulder bags which can be pushed in any where