| Ashtavinayak 1st October 2009 | 2001 Esteem
30th September 2009 three of my friends and I decide to do the entire Ashta Vinayak tour by road.
1st October, 2009 1330 Zubin, Asif, Nikhil and me leave from Vikroli Mumbai for the trip in our Esteem. We drive through Navi Mumbai and Panvel to reach Mhad at 1530. The temple was not crowded and we quickly take our Darshan and offer prayers. 1600 we leave for Pali and reach at 1700hrs. Again we are blessed with a quick Darshan being a week day there are no crowds. We eat our packed lunch in the parking area do some shopping and start towards Theur at 1830hrs.
We drove on the express way and reach Pune at 2030hrs. We were not aware of the route to Theur and drove taking directions from the locals at regular intervals. Pune-Hadapsar-Loni-Theur took longer than expected. The road at certain patches is really bad. We reached the temple at 2155 and the Purohit was about to close the temple for the day. Theur Shree Chinatmani Mandir is open till 2200 hrs. We spent half an hour in the temple and decided to drive to Moregaon next morning.
We started towards Pune to find a decent place to park for the night. We stopped at resturany Vaishali for dinner. The manager at the hotel suggested that we drive towards Loni and spend the night in a lodge. He recommended a lodge too. The lodge was spooky and we thought better to drive towards Moregaon. A few kilometers after the Solapur toll plaza we found Hotel Aditi. Aditi offered a decent double room with four beds and attached bath with a WC for Rs.900.00. Checked in at 0030.
2nd October 2009. Morning alarm went off at 0500; I got up first and after the morning rituals started our drive at 0700. Yavat-Supa-Moregaon was done in 2 hours we reached Moregaon at 0915 and our good luck prevailed. The darshan was completed with in half hour and then we spend some time looking around and had breakfast. The drive to Moregaon is through villages and the roads are rough. There are a few potholes but the entire stretch from Supa to Moregaon the asphalt on the road is missing so we were driving on the subgrade.
From Moregaon we started towards Siddhatek the road is in similar condition and the average speed for the drive was about 40KM/ph. The route to Siddhtek: Supa-Choufula-Patas-Daund-Siddhtek. We reached Siddhtek at 1400hrs. At 1430 we started towards Rajangaon. Daund-Kashti-Belvandi-Shirur-Rajangaon is around 100 Km through small towns similar roads though at some places you can speed up to around 100Km/ph. We reached Ranjangaon at 1600 hrs.
Ranjangaon is quite commercial and there was a little crowd. We met a group that was doing the Ashtavinayak trip on motor bikes. At 1530 we left Ranjangaon towards Ozar. Our plan was to halt at Narayangaon we reached the place at 1700 and decided to continue towars Ozar. Reached Ozar at 19.40 and the evening Arti was going on. Ozar is the most well managed of all the Ashtavinayaks. They have three ‘Bhakt niwas’ where tourist/pilgrims can stay. Unfortunately all the Bhakt Niwas were booked by a flim crew. We were told that the crew shooting for Ravaan has booked all the rooms till Novemeber . We checked into yash lodge, which is more of a bungalow with the rooms given to pilgrims. The rent was 500 per room. We ate at the Mahabog hall where food is available for Rs.15 per head and is quite decent. We the attended the arati at 2230hrs and crashed for the day. Shikrapur-Chakan-Rajgurunagar-Narayangaon-Ozar 115Km.
3rd October 2009. We woke up at 0630 and attended the 0730 Arati, had breakfast and started for the last temple of Shree Girijatmaj at Leynaydri. The road on this stretch is extremely bad for about 20Kms. We passed a village named Godegaon and the roads are non existent. The 20Km stretch took us two hours. We reached Leynaydri at 1100hrs. There area bout 200+ steps to climb to reach the temple. The temple is the simplest. Carved into the mountain are Buddhist caves and one of the residential halls has the cave of Shree Girijatmaj.
If you are driving from Ozar to Leynadri you can also do Shivenri Fort on the way it’s a 15Km detour. We skipped Shivneri and moved on to Bheemashankar
From Leynadri we visited Bhimashakar Temple. Leynaydri – Narayangaon – Manchar from Manchar - Bhimashankar distance is 70 kms and route is very narrow at times but scenic. The total time we took was 3hours we reached Bheemashankar at 1415. We spent about two hours at Bheemashankar.
At 1600 we had lunch at Manchar and then took the - Rajgurunagar – Pune route for the expressway. Were lost on the road and spent 70Kms trying to find our way back. We started from Pune expressway at 19:25 and reached Mumbai through heavy rains at 21:00 hours.
Total kilometers traveled 978 and fuel used was 107 liters.
Last edited by Jaggu : 12th October 2009 at 18:58.
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12th October 2009, 18:39
