[CasperRider]

Target: Pune(Maharashtra)-Tellicherry (Kerala) & return.
Distance: Approx 1100 KMs (Not the shortest)
Route: Pune >Kohlapur>Nippani >Sawantwadi> Panji >Madgaon> Karwar >Udupi >Mangalore>Kannur >Tellicherry

This is not the first time that I managed to go for a long drive. This is also not the first time my Scorp was going for a long drive either. However, this is the first time and kept some time apart to write a travelogue, specifically in T-BHP. I’m glad I could make it finally. Nevertheless, every such drives have something new in there, certainly something afresh! I wanted to take a break for sometime, from an extremely busy schedule and I’ve always found that long road trips lets one do that. Mobile phone and blackberry will rest in peace inside the dashboard as I have an excuse to not to use them , as I don’t use either of them while driving

The opportunity came this time as my Wify and Kido were in Kerala, enjoying the summar vacation and I had to go and bring them back. My friend and neighbour who had to do a similar exercise agreed to join me.
After some discussions, planning and few phone calls, we decided the route and finalized the plan. Though I have driven around these areas often, we had to do this every time, as the conditions of roads often changes in India and you will be hit by surprises of vanishing acts by the roads on the way . I must say, a GPS navigation device is a must on such trips, and it is in my list of things to buy.

Day 1
We decided to take Kohlapur-Nipani-Savantwadi-Panji-Madgaon-Karwar-Udupi-Mangalore-Kannur with two nights halt on the way(though it was possible to reach the whole distance in a day), at the matter of leisure. So the plan was to leave Pune by Friday evening, the 15th of May and stay at Kohlapur after a 3 hrs drive on NH4. The original plan was to leave by 6:00 PM, but by the time we could finally start it was past 7:30 PM. The beast needed fuel, so filled up tank full at the nearby HPCL outlet and continued. It took little more than an hour to beat the evening peak traffic and enter NH4 from the via duct, an example of engineering excellence. Talking about NH4, for those who do not know, it was built part of the golden quadrilateral project and the stretch that I’m talking about connects Panvel(Outskirts of Mumbai) to Bangalore and includes the 80 KMs stretch of Mumbai-Pune expressway . The road is pretty well built, all the way to Bangalore(an exception of ~60 KMs, an example of pathetic governance in India) in with two lanes either side with an occasional third one. Normally one can easily keep an average of 100 KM/h, in most areas, irrespective of the type of car.

The drive was fine and the beast was happy to cruise at 100-120, and occasional 140s though we had to often deal with erratic truck drivers, who would drive extremely slow on the right most lane and never give way for speeding vehicles. The only other thing that slowed us down was the frequent toll booths that exist frequently on NH4. I had done Pune-Kolhalapur in the past in 3 hrs(230 KMs), both in my old WagonR and Scorp, so I was confident that I could reach well on time, even though we started late. We had stopped for a quick dinner on the way and this place was an average kind, but the food in fact tasted great. The only funny thing was the name boards of the hotel, with all spelling mistakes. I will post the pics on this soon.

We were in Kohlapur city by 12:00AM, that was 3 hrs from Pune, considering a 30 min dinner break we had. It took us some time for us to figure out the hotel location, especially since most roads in the city were dug up and they were on a massive concretisation drive of internal roads.

Day 2
Though the original plan was to leave as early as possible the next day, we finally left by 9:15 AM, as the main objective of the next day was to reach Goa for lunch.

There are at least two (there are certainly more) routes from NH4 to NH17, to reach Goa. We decided to take the Nippani-Ajra-Amboli-Savantwadi (The exit at Kaveri hotel in Nippani, as suggested by many fellow T-BHPans). We exited NH4 at Nipani at 10 AM and as mentioned by many others on different T-BHP threads, this route was comparatively better than the Sankeswar- Gadhinglaj and was newly resurfaced in most areas. There were gulmohar trees all the way and overall the entire route was very scenic. Here are some pics to start with:

[Bigzero]

Wow thats a nice start! Looking forward to reading about the rest of your journey.

The pictures of the roads with trees on both sides sometimes remind you of what we are losing out when we convert some of our major roads to four ( and six ) lane highways! There is a fun element in driving on those tree-lined two-lane roads that the big ones cant match, though it may take longer time.

[siedo]

Nice start CasperRider to a cool jouney with Beautiful surroundings & great roads even in this time of the year, I really miss the beauty of south Maharashtra.

waiting for more pics ..

[CasperRider]

@siedo- Thanks buddy, I will certainly post the rest of pics and details. The usual Monday blues
@Bigzero- Thank you. I completely agree with your comments. I must agree that even at the peak of summer, Amboli was cool

[ranjith.rajaram]

Hey CasperRider, I guess you had a nice trip, How was the road condition between Kannur >Tellicherry and more pics of kerala

[CasperRider]

We hit Goa boarder by 12:30 PM and we had to slow down a bit as there were frequent speed limit boards and some of them were showing as slow as 20 KM/h, for no reason. We didn’t want to be entertainment for the cops so were maintained a slow average. We could spot cops at couple of locations with speed detectors and I’ve always seen them in the past right after the Mandovi bridge that said 30 KM/h. This time as well, though they didn’t bother us.
Alright, we were by now seriously hungry! It was past 2 PM by then and in search of a restaurant that can provide us authentic Goan food, we were already in south Goa. For some reason, we took a right turn towards Vasco from NH17 and that was the best blind decision that we ever made. A few Kms later we found a fuel station and that’s when we spotted this placed called Lava on the first floor. We decided to check it out and that was another best decision that we could make.

[CasperRider]

Originally Posted by ranjith.rajaram

Hey CasperRider, I guess you had a nice trip, How was the road condition between Kannur >Tellicherry and more pics of kerala

Hi Ranjith, the road between Kannur-Tellicherry was pretty good. Superfine tarmac with no potholes (I was certainly surprised) with proper lane marking, though it is just a single lane road. There was heavy traffic near Kannur city even on early morning Sunday. I will certainly post more pics as soon as I can.

[pjay_in]

Beautiful pics, CasperRider. Waiting for more content and pictures...

Originally Posted by CasperRider

Hi Ranjith, the road between Kannur-Tellicherry was pretty good. Superfine tarmac with no potholes (I was certainly surprised) with proper lane marking, though it is just a single lane road. There was heavy traffic near Kannur city even on early morning Sunday. I will certainly post more pics as soon as I can.

NH17 in Kerala is not single lane, but double lane with no divider.

[ranjith.rajaram]

Originally Posted by CasperRider

Hi Ranjith, the road between Kannur-Tellicherry was pretty good. Superfine tarmac with no potholes (I was certainly surprised) with proper lane marking, though it is just a single lane road. There was heavy traffic near Kannur city even on early morning Sunday. I will certainly post more pics as soon as I can.

Thanks for the info mate.

Great pics Casper, did you feel that the ship is too close to the shore never seen a ship on the shore so close may be the sea is quite deep ..

[CasperRider]

Originally Posted by pjay_in

Beautiful pics, CasperRider. Waiting for more content and pictures...



NH17 in Kerala is not single lane, but double lane with no divider.

Thanks for the correction, buddy. Yes, that's what I actually meant, though.

@ranjith.rajaram- Well, it actually was at least 500 M away. It looks too close in the pic

[CasperRider]

Sorry for the delay as I have been swamped with all the week. Journey continues:

We said good bye to Lava(and Goa!) by 3:30 PM, with topped fuel tank of ourselves and the beast, and we continued. Road was good, light music was playing inside and the beast was cruising at 100-120 KM/h, most times, with absolutely no fatigue.
We crossed Karwar in next one hour and headed to Ankola on NH17. A friend with his Punto (another t-BHPan) of us was heading the opposite way and we decided to meet up at Ankola as he was planning to take the Ankola-Yellapur-Hubli road for return to Pune. We reached Ankola at sharp 6:00 PM, covering approx 140 Kms in 2:30 Minutes. My black beast and his red Punto exchanged smiles at Ankola, though we didn’t get out of the cars and the entire area was covered in red dust, so called the iron ore, that the trucks from nearby mine deposited all over. Even the tarmac had the lousy reddish metal colour.
We left in another 10 min and the plan was to halt at Kundapura, approx 150 KMs from Ankola, close to the temple town called as Udupi. The famous Mookambika temple can be reached from any of the right exits close to Kudapura. This stretch of 150 Kms was tough, though the road was good enough, the high beam headlights of oncoming trucks and buses often completely put us in blind spots. The role of the road was followed. Never look at the headlight of the oncoming vehicle, rather look for the left edge of the road and drive at a moderate speed. I seriously felt the need of upgrading my Scorp’s headlights, and probably even putting up Hellas or light forces. We were close to Kudapura by 9 PM, and found this small resort on the right side of the road and decided to check it out. Before that, we did call up few hotels in Kudapura city, and to our surprise, all of them were full. We didn’t want to take up any chance and checked in here.

[deutscheafrikar]

Originally Posted by ranjith.rajaram

Thanks for the info mate.

Great pics Casper, did you feel that the ship is too close to the shore never seen a ship on the shore so close may be the sea is quite deep ..

Originally Posted by CasperRider

@ranjith.rajaram- Well, it actually was at least 500 M away. It looks too close in the pic

ranjith.rajaram thats the River Princess and it's run a ground off the shore and been there for the past 10 years I think.

CasperRider did you visit the candolim- sinquerim beach on your way to lunch at South Goa, cause you mention going straight on to the mandovi bridge.

[hyd_traveller]

Originally Posted by CasperRider

Target: Pune(Maharashtra)-Tellicherry (Kerala) & return.
Distance: Approx 1100 KMs (Not the shortest)
Route: Pune >Kohlapur>Nippani >Sawantwadi> Panji >Madgaon> Karwar >Udupi >Mangalore>Kannur >Tellicherry

We were in Kohlapur city by 12:00AM, that was 3 hrs from Pune, considering a 30 min dinner break we had. It took us some time for us to figure out the hotel location, especially since most roads in the city were dug up and they were on a massive concretisation drive of internal roads.

There are at least two (there are certainly more) routes from NH4 to NH17, to reach Goa. We decided to take the Nippani-Ajra-Amboli-Savantwadi (The exit at Kaveri hotel in Nippani, as suggested by many fellow T-BHPans). We exited NH4 at Nipani at 10 AM and as mentioned by many others on different T-BHP threads, this route was comparatively better than the Sankeswar- Gadhinglaj and was newly resurfaced in most areas. There were gulmohar trees all the way and overall the entire route was very scenic.

Which hotel did you stay at in Kolhapur and what was the tariff?

Can you or someone else guide me to the exact location of the turn-off from GQ/NH4 for Ajra at Nipani (or is the turn-off after Nipani)?

[CasperRider]

Originally Posted by hyd_traveller

Which hotel did you stay at in Kolhapur and what was the tariff?

We stayed at hotel Opel. Take a look at their website(hotelopel.co.in). It is a great place for food as well.

Originally Posted by hyd_traveller

Can you or someone else guide me to the exact location of the turn-off from GQ/NH4 for Ajra at Nipani (or is the turn-off after Nipani)?

You wont miss this buddy. Look for hotel Kaveri on this right side just when start climing the ghat after Nippani. You will see the sign board saying Goa. Should be approx 1 hr from Kolhapur.

[deutscheafrikar]

Originally Posted by hyd_traveller

Can you or someone else guide me to the exact location of the turn-off from GQ/NH4 for Ajra at Nipani (or is the turn-off after Nipani)?

hyd_traveller,

I think this is the webite Hotel Opal, Kolhapur, tambda pandhra rassa, hotels in Kolhapur, Kolhapur Hotels, kolhapuri cuisine, heritage Kolhapur, Mahalaxmi Temple, Ambabai, Kolhapuri Chappals, Rankala, Dajipur, radhanagari Dam, Kalammawadi dam, Narsobawadi, Bahubali,

For the turn off the NH4 to amboli read this page first post to see the photos of the Kaveri/satyapalace turn which is 24 km after the last kognoli toll plaze or the sankeshwar gadinglaj turn whick is 12 kms after the two restaurants. You can go through the pages before and after to get a better idea. Alternatively ask ranjitp1 which is a better route when you leave.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...ur-goa-13.html