Konkan Trip - Diveagar,Srivardhan,Harihareshwar

Had been to Konkan over the weekend of 26-27 April 2008. It was an amazing experience on bike.

We (me and Vik) started from Chandani Chowk at 7.45 am and were cruising at 50kmph. Vik wasnt confident so he told me that we wont speed..I too didnt like the idea of speeding at the start of the journey but was a little apprehensive that we might be reaching late..but anyways we were cruising.

The best part is the roads. I was amazed at the quality of the roads on this route , we were to take the Paud -> Mulshi -> Dongarwadi -> Tamhini -> Vile -> Nizampur -> Mangaon route. I am sure going to try this route during monsoon to see how its like.Except for a few stretches on the ghats the roads are very good.I guess they were laid recently but nevertheless they were good.

After an hour or so we reached Mulshi Khurd where we stopped for breakfast, the time read 9am. Had a good breakfast of misal , vada and chai and started again for the destination. The roads ahead were a mix of good and bad , the good ones were really good and the bad ones were not much. I really hope the roads stay this way after the monsoons :) We made a resolution of riding at 50kmph and it was fun crusing at that speed.

Riding on the ghat was fun and the roads were ok. Reached Mangaon at around 10.55am and had a break for water and cooling off. Surprisingly being in Konkan the heat and humidity didnt affect much because of the cloudy weather we couldnt feel the sun hence the heat didnt affect us, infact i was feeling cool.

We reached Mhasla in no time (18 km from Mangaon) via the SH-98 and it was a dream road all through to Mhasla via the Morbi ghat road. Finally we took the right turn from Mhasla for Diveagar (20 km from Mhasla). The road here is also good. We reached Diveagar at 12.30pm and had darshan at the Golden Ganpati temple and called up the people where we had booked for the day as couldnt find their house. Finally , the person himself came to see us and we went with him to his place.

His home was good and we got a room on the 1st floor , the room was spacious and had the necessary things.Cool breeze was blowing out and we were just sitting out and enjoying. Our stomachs started growling for lunch and we booked our lunches at Patils Khanaval nearby. The food there was tasty and good for 100 bucks per plate. We came back to the room and just sat for sometime before leaving for Srivardhan.

There are two roads for Srivardhan from Diveagar one is via Shekhadi (the worst road i have ever seen in my life) and the other is on the route from Mhasla to Diveagar where we need to tak e a right while going from Diveagar to Mhasla at Borli village. This road is simply awesome and good. We ended taking the bad road via Shekhadi though you get some amazing views on that road of the sea and the sea stays with you throughout the journey.

We reached Srivardhan beach in about 45 minutes (srivardhan is 16km from Diveagar) and went directly to the beach and had a nice time playing in water for sometime and photography.
Finally we just sat there for sunset and had an amazing view , btw srivardhan beach is no longer clean with plastic littered to its length and breadth, it sure is becoming polluted from the number 1 status it had, clearly and influx of tourists plus neglection is leading to its decay.

After sunset we started again for Diveagar via the same bad road (we didnt know about the existence of a better road) and continued. At one place a person stopped me and asked for a lift upto shekhadi which I gave willingly , he was some daily wage worker and was returning home on foot because at that time no vehicle / six seaters pass by. He got down at Shekhadi and thanked us profusely even telling us to come back next day to his place and he would give us a free ride in his boat in the sea. We said our goodbyes to him and came back. The road was hell. It was more of road patches in between craters !

Finally we arrived at Diveagar and went to the room and freshened ourselves and went for dinner. Dinner was good and we went to the room and did some time pass before retiring for the day. Sleep was more or less good partly because we were tired of the day driving and partly because of the bad road :)

Next day morning we woke up and went to the Diveagar beach , I can rate this as a better one than Srivardhan (really) and its bigger than Srivardhan. We spent some time photographing and returned back to the room. Had a nice bath and left the place. The total charges for room and dinner for the day was 500bucks, quite ok. We left for Harihareshwar at 10am and on the way stopped near the Suvarna Ganpati Mandir and had nariyal pani and continued on our way to Harihareshwar. The way to Harihareshwar is via Srivardhan but this time we took the other route not the Shekhadi route. The other road was simply fantastic and we had a great time going ahead. Finally we reached the petrol pump on the outskirts of Srivardhan and took the Srivardhan - Lonere road to Harihareshwar. After Lonere Phata the road looks like an expressway upto Harihareshwar , last time when I had gone the road was a mess but now lo it has transformed to a great road. We reached Harihareshwar at 11 am and immediately had an awla soda....you get these sodas there for 10 bucks, cool stuff.

We went to the temple of harihareshwar and came out and went to the rocks by the sea. The sight there is amazing totally and we enjoyed a lot there. The heat was rising and the sun was too shining brightly making us perspire to our limit as we made our way back to the hotel where we wanted to have lunch. Once at the hotel we had our lunch and finally started from Harihareshwar to Pune at 1.15pm

We turned right at the Lonere Phata and went ahead, the road ahead is two lane only until Mhasla and to add to it the ghats are dangerous there. We reached Mhasla in over 45 minutes , 32 odd km from Harihareshwar and from Mhasla the great SH-98 started , with great surface we reached Mangaon at around 3pm and had sugarcane juice and water.

We turned right after Mangaon bus stand towards Nizampur and Pune (the same route which we had taken earlier while coming from Pune). Riding now we were bored partly because of the stifling heat and partly because of boredom :). We started at 3.20pm from Mangaon and were at the ghats by 4.00pm and reached Chandani chowk by 5.30pm , all in all a great trip. We said our goodbyes and went home.

450 km of pure fun and amazing biking. Would love to do Pune-Ganapatipule sometime, lets hope :) .