[arindamray]

My cousin got transferred to Pune and was asking me to come down. Around the same time I also stumbled across Hari's (LukeSkyWalker) travelogue about his trip to Pune, Mahabaleswar and Ganapatipule; and decided to cover this route.

Planned it earlier around in early Feb, but it didn't materialize. Long week-end of Ugadi gave the second chance, took off for two more days to plan for this 5 day trip.

Lots of phone call to Pune to decide what would be the route, depending on whether my cousins are coming with us to any place or not. First we thought we will go together to Mahabaleswar (so the route being G'Pule - Pune - Mahabaleshwar), was shot down as this was not the right season to go there. They will be in Pune for some time now, can afford to wait, but I was sure about covering it in this time only. So next suggestion was they will not travel and thus we will do G'pule - Mahabaleshwar - Pune and spend the week-end in Pune. Finally we decided to go to G'Pule together, so the route for me is Mahabaleswar - Pune - Ganapatipule. Would like to mention here that it called for some extra travel, as Mahabaleswar is midway between Pune and Ganapati pule, so if you do not have any other constraints, you should plan it that way to save on travelling distance and time.

Now with the route and hence dates fixed, went ahead with the booking - company holiday home in Mahabaleshwar and MTDC resort in Ganapatipule. More readings of the related threads in TBHP, studying maps in mapmyindia and few PMs to hvkumar, and we are all set about the roads in each of the segments.

First set of packing done over the previous week-end, and final touches on the day before, we are all set to start. But not without glitches, as some project was running into trouble, and had to attend some calls till late. So pushed the start time to 4:00 am instead of 3:00 am which was planned earlier.

25th Mar, 2009

The alarm rang at 3:30. Being the driver, I enjoy a 15 minute late departure from bed for the trips. Wife says she will get up in 5 minutes. But then I next heard her voice, 'Oh my God'. The clock has turned to 4:45 am, while we enjoyed our sleep, a little more than 5 minutes. After getting ready quickly, put all the different size of bags and parcels in the car in their respective locations, we rolled out the car from the parking lot at 5:30 am, already late by one and half hour.

[Surprise]

I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with this section. Let this thread be updated with lots of photos before I sit with it

[Lukeskywalker]

Great to hear about a trip along the same lines, this looks like it's going to be a TV serial

[arindamray]

Did not venture out on the Dodballapur-Dobbspet route as it was unknown and being early morning would not get people to give us the direction. So cut across the city to Yashwantpur to take the NH4. The usual diversions for the construction work and heavy truck traffic followed till Neelamangala.

Till Chitradurga, road is known from our trip to Bijapur-Badami-Hampi in Jan end (travelogue @ http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...g-history.html), and was confident about crossing this 200 km in 3 hours. Only thing I forgot is that we started late and hence had to take the breakfast break before Chitradurga.

We took it in the same Vittal Kamat adjacent to HP bunk as Hari did, though it was not recommended. But we were hungry and could not see anything else. Masala dosa was ok, but the onion uttapam was not upto the mark.


One interesting architecture we saw, can someone identify what it is?


The road after Chitradurga, though 4 lane, lacks the marking.


Hubli Dharwar express way, two lane with marking


Beyond Dharwar, a dream to drive on. Did Hubli-Belgaum, a distance of little over 100 km in one hour, without hurrying.




Just for the records (TBHPians frequent this route often so details are overkill), Tumkur and Chitradurga BP have the flyovers being built and hence diversions galore. Section of Davangere-Harihar, 4 laning work is going on, and hence diversions every km or so. Worst is Ranebennur, going through the town.

We stopped at Haddirgi, after Belgaum to fill in the fuel. It was lunchtime already, and I asked the IOC attendant 'Bhai, koi achha dhaba milega'? And pat came the reply 'Kiyun, Ram Dhaba'. The tone of the answer embarrased me for not knowing this place. I still master the courage to ask him about the location and it turned out to be next to next property from the petrol pump.

However the dhaba turned out nothing to write home about. The baigan masala was so tasteless even with that hunger we could not take it. We were late to start, and could not reach the McDonalds in Kolhapur for lunch.

After lunch we entered Maharashtra and almost immediately realised that I had taken a wrong decision by filling up in Karnataka, as diesel is more than a rupee cheaper this side of the border.


We estimated travel time to Satara as 11 hours (hvk does it non-stop in 9 hours); 3 hours for each 200 km strech: Bangalore - Chitradurga, Chitradurga - Hubli, Hubli - Kolhapur. One more hour for Kolhapur - Satara, and half an hour each for brakfast and lunch break.

However with the good road condition in the Hubli-Kolhapur section, we could shave off half an hour.

In one of the circle in Satara, we spotted a mini Eiffel Tower.


Asking for directions to Mahabaleswar in couple of places, we were on the way to it. We chose the satara road, as anyway would be taking Panchgani - Wai road while going to Pune.


The view from one of the turns.


Twists and turns inside Satara town, the ghat roads to Mahabaleswar, locating our holiday home in Mahabaleswar took some time, and finally we parked our car in the holiday home at 5:45 pm.

[arindamray]

Originally Posted by Surprise

I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with this section. Let this thread be updated with lots of photos before I sit with it

One update done, so you should be happy I guess.

Originally Posted by Lukeskywalker

Great to hear about a trip along the same lines, this looks like it's going to be a TV serial

Thanks Hari. As I said, it was your travelogue which made me plan this trip, never heard of G'Pule before.
Will surely be shorter than some of those saas-bahu serials.

[akroy]

Arindam, awesome start. Will keep watching this place for more and more.

Abhi

[prince_pervez]

Great stuff. Reminded me of the NH4 once again. I did Bangalore - Kolhapur in 10 hours (4AM - 2 PM)in a stock zen. 2 stops. And yes, out of which, one was at Kamat .
Great pics! keep em coming.

[Lukeskywalker]

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/ADMINI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG]

IIRC, this is in the Vijayanand Roadways campus on the highway.

[pypkmsrikanth]

Is there a Vittal Kamath's before Chitradurga I know of one which is after Haveri. It was the place we had our lunch on our way back to Chennai from Mahableshwar. I took 16 hours between Mahableshwar & Bangalore with a 4 hour stop at Belgaum. This was done in my Wagon R with 3 stops, breakfast, lunch & tender cocunut & fuel break at Sira.

We started at 5 in the morning from Mahableshwar & ended up reaching Chennai at 2.45 the next day morning.

You actually get a nice view of a dam (not sure of the name) while you climb up from Satara towards Mahableshwar.

[rkavthekar]

This is one of the most amazing trips you have embarked upon. I know Luke did the same few months back and also included Shirdi, but, nevertheless, excellent choice. I liked the way you write and photographs are excellent. The snap of ghat to Mahabaleshwar is the most teasing one.

I am now eagerly waiting for your next episodes MahaB to G'pule and then G'pule to Pune and finally back to Bangalore

take care and drive safely

[hotstuff]

Nice trip Arindam, looking forward to reading more...

One interesting architecture we saw, can someone identify what it is?

This structure is on NH-4 close to Chitradurga. It is a memorial in honor of S.Nijalingappa, who was the first Chief-minister of Karnataka and was from C'durga.

I used to pass by this structure quite often during my drives from Blr to Davanagere. Construction started in 2002 and it was finally completed in 2007 after significant delays.

* Image courtesy: The Hindu.

[mjothi]

Nice start. Roads are inviting Seems you ended up with those same Vittal Kamat. As you said, yes no options around. Lol.

[arindamray]

Thanks all for your comments.

Originally Posted by akroy

Arindam, awesome start. Will keep watching this place for more and more.
Abhi

Expect regular updates after office hours.

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

Great stuff. Reminded me of the NH4 once again. I did Bangalore - Kolhapur in 10 hours (4AM - 2 PM)in a stock zen. 2 stops. And yes, out of which, one was at Kamat .
Great pics! keep em coming.

Roads are getting better, and hence travel time are shrunk. Though I have to refer back to notes, but I don't think we took any more than 9.5 for Kolhapur with breakfast and lunch break.

Originally Posted by pypkmsrikanth

Is there a Vittal Kamath's before Chitradurga I know of one which is after Haveri. It was the place we had our lunch on our way back to Chennai from Mahableshwar. I took 16 hours between Mahableshwar & Bangalore with a 4 hour stop at Belgaum. This was done in my Wagon R with 3 stops, breakfast, lunch & tender cocunut & fuel break at Sira.

We started at 5 in the morning from Mahableshwar & ended up reaching Chennai at 2.45 the next day morning.

You actually get a nice view of a dam (not sure of the name) while you climb up from Satara towards Mahableshwar.

Yes, Shrikanth, there is one; I think between Sira and Hiriyur. My journey to Mahabaleshwar took around 12 hours, so more or less the same time.

We also saw the catchment area of the dam and it was quite huge.

Originally Posted by rkavthekar

This is one of the most amazing trips you have embarked upon. I know Luke did the same few months back and also included Shirdi, but, nevertheless, excellent choice. I liked the way you write and photographs are excellent. The snap of ghat to Mahabaleshwar is the most teasing one.

I am now eagerly waiting for your next episodes MahaB to G'pule and then G'pule to Pune and finally back to Bangalore

take care and drive safely

thanks rkavthekar. BTW, it will be MahaB to Pune and then to Pune to G'Pule and finally back to Bangalore.

Originally Posted by hotstuff

Nice trip Arindam, looking forward to reading more...

This structure is on NH-4 close to Chitradurga. It is a memorial in honor of S.Nijalingappa, who was the first Chief-minister of Karnataka and was from C'durga.

I used to pass by this structure quite often during my drives from Blr to Davanagere. Construction started in 2002 and it was finally completed in 2007 after significant delays.

* Image courtesy: The Hindu.

Thanks hotstuff for help in identifying.

Originally Posted by Lukeskywalker

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/ADMINI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG]

IIRC, this is in the Vijayanand Roadways campus on the highway.

Hari, I think hotstuff is right. But I saw VR board also, may be the next property belongs to them.

Originally Posted by mjothi

Nice start. Roads are inviting Seems you ended up with those same Vittal Kamat. As you said, yes no options around. Lol.

Hmm, no other options. But starting a little earlier could have gone to BPCL ghar close to Ranebennur.
BTW, aren't roads always inviting?

[ASHISHPALLOD]

@shrikanth--You actually get a nice view of a dam (not sure of the name) while you climb up from Satara towards Mahableshwar.

@ arindam--We also saw the catchment area of the dam and it was quite huge.

That is kanher dam.

BTW, nice pics.
Still Mahaby pics yet to come but i have made my mind to visit mahaby on 11th apr to have strawberry ice cream at Mapro point just 120 km away from baramati.

[GSMINC]

Originally Posted by hotstuff

This structure is on NH-4 close to Chitradurga. It is a memorial in honor of S.Nijalingappa, who was the first Chief-minister of Karnataka and was from C'durga.

I* Image courtesy: The Hindu.

By the way, K C Reddy was the 1st chief minister of karnataka