Pegasus Diary : February 2014

Year 2013 was about to end.
Even after clocking near to 15,000 KMs till 20th Dec, I realised I haven't done any significantly different trip. All I have been to is Lavasa or few places near Pune. With Christmas coming and offering a long weekend, I thought this is the time to do the trip of 2013.

Same was thought of friend Nitin, so we sat down looking at options. Rann of Kutch was long term on our to do list. So a route was planned and we happened to be doing 3.2k Kms in 5 days. This was too hard on pockets. So next option... Nitin immediately jumped to Hampi, as if it was his long term wish.
I said okay, lets do it.

What next week followed was getting bike checked for tour and a frantic search for R15 rear MRF, but alas I had to succumb to CEAT on penultimate evening.

Well as it always is, anxiety keeps on growing till you are eventually on saddle, so directly jumping to it.

Our day one route...

Pune - Kolahpur - Gokak - Badami

We started on 21st Dec morning...

All set for the ride !!!

By 7:30 am we had crossed the first toll on Pune-Satara Highway, where this made me stop and take at-least one click

Directly saved into run-time log

Pune - Satara Highway has too many diversions because of construction work going on. This stretch was more about getting accustomed to new rear Tyre which wasn't till then impressing much. But that perception changes as soon we hit khambatki Ghat(it sounded like that, I am bad with remembering places in between). And at the end of that stretch I completed 15,000 KM on the new odometer installed on bike in April 2013.

See, here I have written Ambati Ghat !!!

These Notes are life saver, I just don't have to think about the times or what to write, the ready made logs !!!

After Sankeshwar road were single lane, and pretty good (please note pretty good here is relative term to what was in store for us after our next stop). And soon we reached Gokak !!!

This stop was very boring, but we had 3 lassis, 4 butter milks, some cold drink. Meanwhile we were devouring all these, ants found Nitin's helmet to cozy and made it their new home.
This meant another wait of half an hour during which helmet was dissected off all it's padding made to have very hot sun bath.

Resting

Dreamy!!!

From here on for next 5 kms we had a fort wall running along at our right side. It seemed pretty exotic that time, broken road narrow road, hill at side, and an ancient fort on other side at touching distance.

The roads traveled through villages, roads kept getting narrower. But we were hopeful, as a passer by had told, last 70 kms to Badami was 4 lane State Highway.

Well the person wasn't wrong, it definitely was 4 lane and State Highway, but it was UNDER CONSTRUCTION. What came ahead made me realize why R15 can't off-road; paining wrists, aching backs, red sand on jackets was outcome of all this....

And Finally around 7 we reached Badami, all dark and frantic search for room started, luckily we got one immediately. It was Hotel Mayura, a KSTDC maintained one. So room was clean, a big spacious bathroom : perfect for hot water bath needed after a long day !!!

After getting refreshed, we decided to check out local market for dinner, read South Indian thali. We found one just 400-500 m away our stay, Hotel Geeta, and well the thali they served was one of the best food we were going to have in next few days.

Our plan for morning was to explore out BhoothNath temple, click some pics and start for Hampi by 12 max. Well in the morning exploring part went kaput when we saw big crowd near cave temple. With none of very fond of temples, we decided to just stroll around empty spaces we can find, click as much as possible...and well that's what we did