[snaronikar]

Day zero (08.10.08): Getting ready for the trip. Filled in Petrol - tank full of 45 ltrs. Checked air and packed all the things . It was a festival day (Ayudha Pooja). Bought all the things including snacks (cup noodles for b/fast) from Metro (by my friend) and other things from a near by mall. Slept off at 11.30 pm and set the alarm to 5.15 am. The hotel bookings (Valentines Resort in Candolium) were done earlier through on of my colleague who is a Goan and the room rent finalized was Rs.800/day with a/c with double occupancy. The idea was to leave Bangalore on 09/10 morning and return on 13/10 (night).

Some statistics: The following were the people went to Goa: My family (Myself, Wifey, Son (5 yrs) and daughter(1.5 yrs) and my friends family (he, his wifey and daughter (6 yrs)). The car used for the travel is my shining "FORD IKON FLAIR". The food used for car was HP Normal. The A/C used is around 90% of the trip. Tyre pressure as recommended by Ford (36 psi-FR & 41 psi-RR).

Day One (09.10.08): Got up before the alaram was buzzing. Took bath and did Pooja as it was Vijaya Dashami. Thought of leaving my house at 0645 hrs to reach my friends house to pick up his family and finally leave by 0700 hrs. But we had to wait for kids to get ready and as usual, we left our house at 0700 hrs and reached my friends house by 0715 hrs. Loaded his bags into dicky and we were finally off at 0720 hrs. The odo reading read at 22442 kms at this point of time.

The route thought of taking was: NH4 throughout - BangaloreVijayanagar-Magadi road-Nice road-Tumkur-Sira-Chitradurga-Davangere-Rennibennur-Haveri-Hubli-Dhawrad-Belgaum-Amboli-Savanthwadi-Mapusa-Panjim-Candolium.

We did not take the usual tumkur road as we knew that the rood was under expansion and will have too much traffic. Hence we took Magadi Road - Nice Road that joined Tumkur Road before Nelamangala.
Soon we rode over the cities one by one. The roads are bad particularly near Davangere-Rennibennur to Haveri stretch. But road after Hubli to Belgaum is awesome (NH4). Had lunch in Ghar resturant attached to BPCL 50 kms before Belgaum. We did take into SH 121 (MH state) to join Amboli and Savanthwadi. These are ghat roads and are very beautiful in Amboli. It is very scenic. There only a few bad patches and that can be done through. From Belgaum it is 160 kms and it takes around 3~4 hrs drive to Mapusa. Reached our destination at 8.20 p.m. It took us around 12 hrs to reach this place. The total distance covered was 672 kms. The FE returned by my Rath was 15.63/ltr.

In between there is Amboli and Savanthwadi, there is a good hotel called Vittal's Kamath. It is is in the midst of the hills and the scenery around the hotel is very beautiful. We stopped here for snacks for 0.45 hrs and then again proceded towards Savanthwadi.

Here are some of the random pics taken during this journey.

My Garib Rath:



I found this during driving to C'durga.





My favourite fans in C'durga (Wind turbines)





The road condition near Rennibennur & Haveri...Pathetic. The contractor has stopped work and ther are no signs of neither the workers nor any equipments for the roads to be completed. Hope Govt will wake up and complete this as soon as possible. My car scrapped through the craters in this road couple of times. Hopefully nothing happened.




I reached this speed from while reaching to Belgaum from Hubli. The vehicle had 4 adults+3 children+Luggage in dicky.



The roads from Amboli and Savanthwadi. Some beautiful sceneries on the way.




Some scenes on the way to Savanthwadi frm Amboli.




This is where I had my lunch.




This is the resturant Vittal's Kamath on the top of the Amboli hills




The travelogue will continue......

[dadu]

nice keep it coming...also any other route/ food stopover details are also welcome, precautions etc.

[akroy]

Nice travelogue Srini, keep them coming !! Nice pics too.
Thanks for the update about the food joints as well (now since the A1 plazas have closed down).
Any reasons why you didnot take the Kittur - Bidi - Khanapur route, it could have been shorter?

I hope you did 150kmph after Dharwad as there is some speed governers in the hubli - Dharwad stretch. isnt it?

Abhi

[HappyWheels]

Aha Snaronikar... so this is what was cooking!

Keep the photos and the experience flowing!

OT: Nice to see a travalogue which has some good amount of info before it went into "continued..." mode! Seems like the latest fancy is to write a 4 line para travalogue and then say 'continued...'. Guess it is the effect of all those TV serials!

[mjothi]

Ha, so, this is was happening silently in the background. Great.

btw, Was these pictures caught in your mobile or cam? i think the white balance needs to be adjusted right? Looks like a tint of magenta. Or you want all your photos to be like your shining ford

[benbsb29]

Srini, i assume some of the snaps have a bluish hue as they were shot from behind the tints of your car windows. As for the kms covered by your car, mine is almost there! Despite mine being newer ! :O

Must have been a great trip having two families and kids. Shall wait for the rest of the write-up.

[snaronikar]

Originally Posted by dadu

nice keep it coming...also any other route/ food stop over details are also welcome, precautions etc.

Thanks. Routes are available. Last year when we went we took haveri-sirsi-kumta-karwar-mapusa-panjim. This time we wanted to try some other route and save some time. Moreover the route taken by us was also good. I had read this in other travelogue.

Originally Posted by akroy

Nice travelogue Srini, keep them coming !! Nice pics too.
Thanks for the update about the food joints as well (now since the A1 plazas have closed down).
Any reasons why you didnot take the Kittur - Bidi - Khanapur route, it could have been shorter?

I hope you did 150kmph after Dharwad as there is some speed governers in the hubli - Dharwad stretch. isnt it?

Abhi

Thanks Abhi. Amboli was very scenic. BTW, howz the road condition in that route?

Yes, I did 150 kmph after dharwad.

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

Aha Snaronikar... so this is what was cooking!

Keep the photos and the experience flowing!

OT: Nice to see a travalogue which has some good amount of info before it went into "continued..." mode! Seems like the latest fancy is to write a 4 line para travalogue and then say 'continued...'. Guess it is the effect of all those TV serials!

Thanks..Yeah...We just planned just 10 days before and everybody (family and children) were ready for this trip. We had holidays for our kids and thought this was the ideal time.

My travelogues will always have some bit of info that can be used by other people.

Originally Posted by mjothi

Ha, so, this is was happening silently in the background. Great.

btw, Was these pictures caught in your mobile or cam? i think the white balance needs to be adjusted right? Looks like a tint of magenta. Or you want all your photos to be like your shining ford

This was caught in my digital camera. It has only 3.2MP and 3X optical zoom. Make: OLYMPUS and it is 4 years old.

I'am seriously thinking of changing the camera now. Maybe I will buy it this Diwali as we will have good offers. I think you have become an expert in photo shoots.

[snaronikar]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

Srini, i assume some of the snaps have a bluish hue as they were shot from behind the tints of your car windows. As for the kms covered by your car, mine is almost there! Despite mine being newer ! :O

Must have been a great trip having two families and kids. Shall wait for the rest of the write-up.

Yeah. The photos were taken from inside my car except for a few sceneries in Amboli ghats. It was a great trip. Everybody enjoyed especially the kids in beaches.

The amboli stretch has a beautiful waterfalls which I will share during my last day of this trip.

[mjothi]

Originally Posted by snaronikar

This was caught in my digital camera. It has only 3.2MP and 3X optical zoom. Make: OLYMPUS and it is 4 years old.

I'am seriously thinking of changing the camera now. Maybe I will buy it this Diwali as we will have good offers. I think you have become an expert in photo shoots.

I hope you took it in right spirit

The reason I was asking is, you have similar outputs from your cam during the last photo shoot. So, I was just asking if it was the same Mobile.

[Raps]

Originally Posted by akroy

Nice travelogue Srini, keep them coming !! Nice pics too.
Thanks for the update about the food joints as well (now since the A1 plazas have closed down).
Any reasons why you didnot take the Kittur - Bidi - Khanapur route, it could have been shorter?

I hope you did 150kmph after Dharwad as there is some speed governers in the hubli - Dharwad stretch. isnt it?

Abhi

Hey Abhi,

The speed governers are present inside the city limits and not the bypass. There would be some 2-3 speed governers from Hubli - Dharwad (before Navnagar, before SDM college and nearing Dharwad)

Cheers,
Raps

[esteem_lover]

Hey, nice trip. But no trip to Goa is complete without some snaps of the beautiful people & the beautiful beaches there. Looking forward for the same.

[snaronikar]

Originally Posted by mjothi

I hope you took it in right spirit

The reason I was asking is, you have similar outputs from your cam during the last photo shoot. So, I was just asking if it was the same Mobile.

Yeah..it is the same. I feel there is some problem with camera. Anyways, the camera is also conked off by end of this tour.

[mobike008]

Nice trip. But, why are the pics either noisy or quite shaken? Also, in some of them the hue is quite differnet almost like sepia

Look forward to more pictures

[snaronikar]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Nice trip. But, why are the pics either noisy or quite shaken? Also, in some of them the hue is quite differnet almost like sepia

Look forward to more pictures

Thanks. It was taken when the car was moving and from inside the car.

[Lukeskywalker]

Nice trip Srini, keep the pics flowing.