Ratnagiri - A dream come true...
Ratnagiri is constantly a major stimulus for my bike ride. Its my in-law’s place and I used to go there with my wife by bus... I don’t want to remember that horror (I mean traveling by bus... not about traveling with my wife). As I now know the great pleasure of riding there on bike!!!
After much ‘discussion’ I got the permission to go to Ratnagiri on bike. This was some six months ago, after that we didn’t go to Ratnagiri till now :-( . In the mean time, I did five other rides adding 2000 km to my odometer. Finally this long weekend (Holi festival) gave me opportunity to make by dream a reality.
Sorry for a looooong prologue... but I guess you got my point!!!
So, all preparations are done. My brother-in-law Mandar joined me at last moment. We refined the route and decided to follow:
Pune – Mulashi – Mangaon – Mandangad – Bankot – Velas – Kelshi – Harne – Dapoli – Dabhol – Guhagar – Hedvi – Jaigad – Ganapatipule – Ratnagiri.
We were not sure whether we can cover entire route.
On Friday (21 March) we started from Pune at 6:30 AM towards Mulashi. Occasionally stopping, finally we saw Bamboo flowers at one place; this was reported last week in Sakal newspaper.
About flowering of Bamboo:
Bamboos seldom and unpredictably flower, and the frequency of flowering varies greatly from species to species. (from couple of decades to over 100 years). When flowering does occur, it is often as a "gregarious flowering," which means that plants of that species will flower worldwide over a several year period. Once flowering takes place, a plant will decline and often die entirely.
We had breakfast at Nizampur (@9:45 am after 100 km). Then joined NH17 (Bombay-Goa Highway) at Mangav and continued till Veer. Leaving NH17 we went towards Ambet, then Mhapral, then Mandangad and finally Bankot (@ 1:45 PM after 200 km). We had brief halts at many places in between.
Bankot village is nicely arranged along hill slops. The main road winds around houses and after an descent emerges surprisingly close to sea. From hear onwards, the road goes parallel to sea shore and at sea level till next village Velas.
Velas is known for breeding place of Marian Turtles (Olive Turtle). We meet Sameer Mahadik who looks after protecting these turtle nests. In brief, a turtle come to sea shore, digs a pit and lays about 100 eggs. Then the turtle covers this pit with sand and returns back to sea (never to come back). These nests are prone to attack by animals. Now the human factor come in... humans dig this pit take out the eggs and sell them... other humans buy them and eat... this has a drastic effect on number of marine turtles.
To protect the eggs, some NGOs come forward. They collect the eggs and put them in another pit in fenced / protected area. This certainly reduces probability of hatching (from 90% to 60%) but it at least protects the eggs from human attack.
Eggs are hatched after 55 days. We were lucky to find 3 babies. We took them to be released near the sea shore; NOT in the sea, as they have to struggle to get into the sea (that’s Nature...)
It feels very different. These babies don’t see there parent around and almost immediately after birth starts walking towards sea... who teaches them all this and who will teach them how to survive in vast sea?
We thanked Sameer Mahadik for giving us once-in-a-lifetime experience. He easily could have said ‘no’ as he was taking a nap on that hot summer afternoon when we approached him… we are glad he didn’t!!!
We were informed that Velas-Kelshi road is in bad condition so we need to go back some 20 km for another diversion to Kelshi. Now we were already late (3:30 PM and still in Velas) so we decided to head towards NH17 and be on highway before dark. So, there ended our ‘costal’ route :-(
We had lunch in Mandangad and reached NH17 via Khed. From here it was straight road to Ratnagiri. Eventually sun went down and we were taking the curves of NH17 with mixed feeling. In a way, we didn’t went on planned route (not even half of it) but we also had a great experience of watching baby turtles going into the sea... more or less we were satisfied.
Finally we reached Ratnagiri at 10:00 PM after covering 420 km.
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On next day in Ratnagiri we witnessed a tornado like structure forming on sea near the beach then advancing towards land and then disappearing. It was pretty frightening to see such thing in action. It reminded me of ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ or ‘The Twister’. Glad it didn’t come our way.
Note: Tornado is different than cyclon. Tornado is seen rarely in India.
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As we changed our route while coming to Ratnagiri, I decided to follow costal road while going to Pune. This time I was alone. We had done Ratnagiri-Ganapatipule-Jaigad part last year in Sumo. But the road was worth to visit again on bike.
I decided to cover Jaigad, Guhagar, Chiplun, Koyana Nagar then Pune via NH4.
Starting at 7:30 AM, I reached Jaigad in 2 hrs. The journey was wonderful with blue sea on left side and twisting roads ahead. After enquiring I found that there is no boat service available from Jaigad port to take bike to the other side. The alternate route was to cross the river from Rai-Bhatgaon bridge. So I followed Khandala-Chafe-Rai road to the bridge. This road is also wonderful, less traffic wide road plenty of directions. The bridge looks excellent from hill top.
The road after Bhatgaon is relatively narrow and there are very few boards for directions. This road goes on the top of hill so the view is quite different. I also saw a Jackal crossing the road. But he went into bushes before I can take any snaps. Last year we saw a Jackal in Jaigad area. Stopping occasionally I reached Shrungar Tali (Tali in short) at 1:15 PM. Taking left I reached Guhagar in 15 min.
Guhagar is not new to me. I had been here several times with my family to visit our family goddess, ‘Durga devi’. I like the temple a lot. There are very few temples where I really WANT to go. This is one of them, where you can find serenity and peace of mind. Many times I wonder whether God really is present at so called ‘Jagrut’ temples which are so crowded, clumsy and dirty.
Anyways, I had a ‘darshan’ and thereafter lunch and left Guhagar at 2:30 for Chiplun. After Chiplun, there is Koyananagar ghat (pass), which I liked a lot but never had done on bike. As expected, it was simply great experience to climb the pass on bike.
Before I get to Patan, it started to rain heavily. I stopped for half an hour but the rain had no intentions to stop. Time was running out, as I have to on NH4 before dark. I am not comfortable for riding a bike in dark and rainy condition on internal road (without any divider), so, though it was raining I continued to ride till I reached NH4 at Karad. After on NH4 there was sporadic shower till Satara. I was all wet (no rain gear as this is start of summer and rain is totally unexpected) and it felt really cold while driving. At one point I was thinking of getting into a lodge and changing to dry clothes and taking nap for few hours before starting again. But that was really not necessary. In some time clothes dried off and I was going slow and steady. I reached home at 12 night after traveling 470 km.
With this I broke all my riding records,
....Longest in a day 470 km (old record 370 km)
....Longest trip 890 km (old record 600 km)
Now total riding on bike is 2900 km.
