9 Feb 2008 was no different. My wife was busy with her office picnic so I decided to go on one day ride… to anywhere …
This time my dear friend Amit was with me and that was good for me in more than one way… one of the reason is my last 3 rides were solo and I was hearing words of concern from concerned people about riding solo. (… well most of them don’t think bike is made to ride distances greater than 20 km…L, anyway that’s different issue)
So, as always we started from Pune in early morning at 6:15 AM. Took Nashik highway (NH 50) after occasional stops, we finally halted for breakfast at Narayangaon (08:30 AM after going 84 km). Climate was so cool that we were compelled to stand under the sun. After missal pav and bhaji pav (my favorite!!!) we started towards Ale Phata.
After Narayangaon one can see huge radio telescopes of GMRT (Giant Meter wave Radio Telescope) exploring the big space we rarely look at.
Taking left at Ale Phate we left behind NH 50 and headed to the road for Kalyan (Mumbai). (I think I saw it as NH 220) This road was having very less traffic and scenic surrounding. After couple of short stops, we reached at a small dam at the right side of road. There was a road on the wall of this dam going towards Harishchandra Gad (Fort). We both simultaneously slowed down and asked each other about going on that road…
The road was in bad condition so we stopped midway and enjoyed the cold water for some time. After some time we returned to main road.
Afterwards, towards Malshej ghat there is MTDC Hotel at perfect location, at edge of cliff such that it is surrounded by valley on two sides. I think its worth visiting in rainy season.
My watch showed 12:00 noon and trip meter showed 150 km.
After this point there is a tunnel and descend starts. We watched some monkeys sitting on someone else’s bike and a way on the right that lead us to a cliff with alone rock standing at the edge and surrounded by valley on three sides, the panoramic view was just amazing.
We started to descend. After coming down there was a change in forest around us. The ghat section was full of evergreen forest, but here trees shedding leaves were more in proportion thus there was lot of leaves on ground and the forest looked less green.
After going some distance (after Saralgaon, before Murbad) there is left turn for Mhasa. From Mhasa one can go to Karjat. We had a lunch at Mhasa. I was also thinking of visiting Bhivpuri Hydroelectric Power station (owned by Tata Power) where I worked for a year. (that was my first job …). If we are on the correct road, Bhivpuri diversion will be before Karjat, but if that’s different road then I know we can’t make it to Bhivpuri due to time constraints.
Fortunately we were on correct road and we reached Bhivpuri at 03:30 PM (after 250 km from Pune). I had a nice walk in past… Amit had a nice visit to Hydroelectric Power Station (though a very small oneJ). After an hour we started towards Karjat. We reached Khopoli (vie Palasdhari) at 05:00 PM.
We were starting to get excited about the curves of Khandala ghat and suddenly the road merged into Expressway with all the heavy vehicles moving slowly in ANY lane and cars zipping past them from right and left (as usual … I should say!!)
Finally we reached at Lonavala at 0530 pm after covering 306 km. We had a shopping stop there for chikki and fudge. After this there was a usual road to Pune. So at home after 14 hr and nearly 370 km, all refreshed and recharged to live the routine life…
1 comment:
Nicely written and captured...
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