The Prelude
It all started with the look at the office calendar and the holiday on October 7, 2010 which was interestingly a Thursday. I always had Goa as a destination on my mind and the four days were good enough to ride thousand plus kilometers.
The trip was dicey till the last minute. Clinton’s bike was with the service center until Wed evening and they only confirmed at 6 PM that it was ready for pickup. It’s a different story that the service was horribly bad and Clinton struggled all the time.
On the night before the ride incessant rains engulfed Bangalore and Clinton (who rides his Enfield aka the bull) and Sachin were stuck up due to a team outing and dinner. Until 2 am it was not clear if we will go or not as they were stuck in the rains and our plan to leave out at 4 AM was impossible. Too many logistics issues and a difficult ride considering none of us had done more than 350 KM in a day.
The Trip
Day I
6:00 AM, Bangalore: Sachin calls up to check if the trip been canceled since I didn’t call him at 5 AM as planned. My bad but am not used to three hours sleep!
7:30 AM, Wind Tunnel Road, Bangalore: Morning coffee and Clinton and I waited for Sachin to join. We rolled off on the trip officially and next task at hand was to skim through the Bangalore morning traffic, reach Tumkur and follow the NH4 except for one glitch Sachin needed the asthma inhaler and none of the shops were open.
The planned route was to take NH4 all the way till Hubli and then follow the Hubli Karwar and then reach South Goa and take the NH406 on return via Shimoga and reach Tumkur and then Bangalore. Here is the Original Plan based on a trip itinerary picked from internet here.
9 AM, Tumkur Road: We reached the highway NH4 around 9 AM. The road was good four lanes and the traffic was less being a weekday. We took a detour into Tumkur city for the meds and immediately joined back.
2 PM, Kamadoda, Rannibennur (Rural): Except for a bad patch of about 60 KMS road were good and it was so much of heat that I was feeling sleepy. We stopped for twenty minutes somewhere after Chitradurga. The NH4 bypass were amazing and we were about 300 KMS away from Bangalore.
The windmills near Chitradurga look amazing though I was lazy not to pull out the camera thinking the light was too harsh.Again my bad :(.
We pulled out at Kamat Upachar, Reliance Petroleum Unit in Kamadoda District about 9 KMS before Rannebennur and about 115 KMS before Hubli. The three South Indian meals were charged only INR 225 and we were back on the road at 2:30 PM.
Rains welcomed us at Haveri by pass and it was so heavy that we thought we have to stop. We were blinded by the rains and the bikes were moving sideways on the flyover because of heavy wind. Totally drenched we couldn’t find a safe place and it stopped pouring in 15 minutes or so; the sun came out as we approached Hubli. I loved my new Cramster riding pants :) they were a pleasure to ride in.
5:15 PM, Hubli: Standing at the bypass we were not sure if we should ride into Karwar in the night. But it was too early to stop. We filled up the tanks and Sachin said let’s go to Belgaum and that Goa was only 30 KMS. We filled the tanks in Hubli and followed NH4 to Belgaum riding in the twilight.
First Deviation from the plan, we were in Belgaum which was not at all planned but the road was good and the ride was fun. NH4 brought back the memories of the drive to Nashik that I did couple of months back.
7:00 PM, Belgaum: Checked into Adarsh Palace on College Road. They charged us INR 1650 for room with room big enough for three people.
We had running HOT water – a boy ran into the evening when we requested for HOT water :) but believe me it was not bad experience.
We headed to the attached bar and restaurant for dinner. Smirnoff with Sprite and a beer and a couple of butter nan with some chicken and I was all set to hit the bed.
Day II
We left Belgaum at about 9:00 AM and realized that we were on a wrong route. Panaji was about 160 KMS and we accidentally went on a route which was about 30 KMS longer. This was an extension of NH4A. Sachin got lost and we wasted half an hour before we located him.
Probably one of the bad patches until we realized the road sucked. We rolled into Goa and crossed the border. The last stretch of the Ghats was beautiful and the moment we crossed the border we ran into mining area with lots of red dust and lots of trucks.
If rains yesterday were a problem this was worst until we rode into Panjim and headed to Calangute.
After lots of Ooh, Aah and Ouch we somehow completed the ordeal.
2:00 PM, Calangute:We checked into MIRA Hotel and they charged us INR 1500 for a double room about 10 minutes walk from the beach itself and freshened up with HOT bath. Those ten minutes in hot shower felt like heaven but it had just begun :)
3:30 PM, Infanteria, Calangute: Awesome lunch and couple of beers to relax.Amazing food slow service and relaxed open air atmosphere. After a happy meal and a little tingling we headed back to the room to pick up our bikes and head to the fort Augoda.
We realized Sachin’s Pulsar rear wheel was flat and it was a perfect place to have a flat. We got it fixed in an hour while we enjoyed a good cappuccino and resumed to Fort.
The fun continued all the way in the night. We had second round of beers and snacks on the Calangute beach itself sitting facing the sea and then walked back into hotel around mid-night.
Day III
7:30 AM, Baga Beach: Had a leisurely stroll on the beach in the morning and decided to head back; freshen up in the hotel and head to Infantria for breakfast.At 9:30 AM we were back on the road. We also met a rider from Mumbai who had come all alone to Goa.
9:30 AM, Augoda Fort and Light House: Strolled around but the sun was very strong and I was sweating like a pig. Sachin and Clinton were also not doing much better so we decided to roll out into Old Goa.
We had Fresh Lime and waited for thirty minutes to get the life back into ourself.
11:30 AM, Old Goa: Visited the Old Goa ruins my favorite from the trip before visiting the Bob Jesus Basilica and then we resumed our journey to Karwar. We were hit by heavy downpour after just before leaving Goa before we crossed the border.
We usually ride at 60 Km/hr in rains but this one was like a real surprise. It was so heavy that we had to stop for almost an hour.
After the rains I tried running the bike but it was not revving properly. I was scared that the engine will die. I guess the water had it effects on the bike and I just kept riding into Karwar.
3:16 PM, Karwar: We reached Karwar and after crossing into the town we stopped by the road just before the bridge. The confluence of the river and sea was beautiful and the place is very quiet. We decided to roll into Gokarna.
5:15 PM, Gokarna: We had our first view of the OM beach. It was hot and humid and we had no option but to check into the Namaste Guest House and there were no air-conditioned rooms available. After about 45 minutes of hike and drive I decided to check in and we called it a night stay.
We walked into the beach after changing and then into the beach shacks on the remote corner and ordered beer and snacks. Soon it was pitch dark, hardly ten people and there were no lights and water was coming up the beach and we soon had to start rushing back the guest house and it was a scary one hour because of the rocks and the water :) but may it was of too much of being safe approach that kicked in.
Second blunder I didn't shoot long exposures of the beautiful beach and rocks !
We continued to party in the Namaste Guest house and it was a relaxing evening all the way into the night all the way past 11 PM. I liked the place, a perfect get away for the busy life and to do probably nothing! I will visit this place again for sure.
Day IV
7:00 AM, Gokarna Temple: A quick visit to the temple and we were back on the road riding on to the NH206 this time in the direction on Udupi. I loved the temple it is built out of the black rock in the same style probably as the Nashik’s Triyambak temple but I am not an expert in this field ;)
8:45 AM, Honavar: Stopped for breakfast and were back on the road in thirty minutes.
11:36 AM, Jog Falls: After two near misses, loads of bad roads, cows and terrible back ache and jerks we reached JOG falls. This was probably the worst patch until now and the NH4A was nothing when compared to this stretch of NH206.
Lots of Ghats but the good thing is that there were lots of Ghats and mighty JOG as the reward. We left JOG at about 1 PM and targeted to reach Shimoga by 2 PM.
2:30 PM, Shimoga: Pathetic roads. There was a kilometer stretch which looked as if it didn’t have any road laid on it ever. We were not even able to maintain 60 Km per hour and decided we will have to do the next three hours at a faster pace so that we can reach Tumkur in day light.
It was an overcast sky and some stretches of road were excellent while others had too many potholes. We stopped for two breaks at 4:15 PM and 5:30 PM each to stretch. It started to rain about 20 KMS before Tumkur.
6:58 PM, Tumkur: With Bangalore still 73 kilometers and it was already dark with drizzle going on I had to ask Clinton to ride in front of me so that I can follow him. The spectacles and the helmet visor make it difficult with everyone riding/driving on HIGH BEAM and my skills get crippled to almost zero.
Sachin disappeared and we wasted about half an hour locating him before we resumed into NH4 (finally) and left NH206. We kept looking for a place to eat but couldn’t find something interesting. We ran into evening traffic into Bangalore city and rains continued.
9 PM, Empire, Church Street Bangalore: We had dinner at Empire eating the famous shawarma rolls while the rain stopped about half an hour ago. I probably had braked more time in the last one hour then in the last four days.
The Conclusion
After 1500 KMS and four days we felt like we had been riding but were not sure where or when. The whole idea of the trip was riding and with just one puncture and thanks to reliability of our lovely bikes we had lots of it. And one more surprising thing is there is not even a single penny of toll that we have to pay if you are riding. All those roads are for free!
Finally we ended up doing this route instead of the planned one but still it was an interesting ride worth all the four days !
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| Actual Trip Map (Click for Larger Map) |
And to conclude I will quote Clinton
”7 cities, 6 meals, 5* tanks of fuel, 4 days, 3 bikes, 2 close shaves, 1 hell of a 1500 km adventure!”
*Avenger required 4 and Pulsar 150 had 3.5 tanks fills
