^^Thx man. There are more commin.

@Inder: Jisne gift diya hai uske saath ek special ride kaaa plan hain. She is now in singapore an will be in India only after march. So the delay...........

Arre vaah vaah...!! kya baat hai.... a nice thought...!

Some new pics for u guys till i complete the logs n rest of the pics....


Shiva zoomin ahead of my Unicorn on the ZMA.








Hold on for all the fun stufff......................

Malshej Ghats:

The rain had subsided. We had a cup of tea and some good day packets. Start a good day with a bite of Good Day. The dhaba was pathetic, all messy. We didnt have much choice as it was raining heavily for quite some time. We started gearin up for the route ahead. Eicher road map was out on the table to find the route to "Ahupe". So we wore our jackets and started back on NH 222 (I lve tht no). As usual, we sat in the bikes and it again started raining heavily. This time I was on the front seat riddin the unicorn and gettin wet. Anup was sittin behind me as a pillion for some time and clickin snaps with my sony.

As the km's increased on the trip meter, showers also started to become stronger. We had to park underneath a tree or would be fully drenched for the nxt 100+ km's. The rain didnt want to stop. A thought came across tht the ride was a bad idea & we shld turn back home but seeing at the school kids headin to school without an umbrella was enough for us to regain faith in the tarmac bellow. We strated again with a underpowered unicorn and ZMA with a bald rear tyre. The ZMA was wobbling on the wet roads so we were slow. This time anup was riddin and I was shooting snaps.We crossed murbad in the nxt few minutes. The eyes were glued at the "Misal Pav" being served at the small tapri's in Murbad. I was dying of hunger. Few km's passed zoom... zomm... and the ghat sections of the NH222 started. I had been on this route during the rain's. In mid august wen we had been here the surroundins were lush green with foggy climate. I can never forget the scenery. This time it was not green but has a yellowish tint of the dry grass around. Even with this pale yellow colour due to which the surroundings glow during the summer the ghats seemed to be awesome. The camera jst loved the Nane Ghats. The characteristic of this ghat is itz low altitude and properly banked roads.

Nane ghat was a cool ride. With anup on the drivers seat and the roads pretty dry we were at avg speeds of 70-80 km. Soon malshej started. Heaven was around the corner. Ive seen many ghats but the rocks on the mountains and the perfect harmony of trees and mountains always puts malshej on the top. Reachin to the top of the ghats we had a cigy break. I dont rem if they had alight. We had parked the bikes on the edge of the road. The view for there was cool. We could see zig zag roads tht we traveled to reach on the top. in 5mis we were out of there. There were sin broads everywhere "Falling rocks, Donot wait". We slowly climbed dow the slope. I had captured enough photos to keep me busy for a week. Malshej had ended in a matter of 30 mins.

We were now busy hunting locals andaskin them the road to Ahupe, Shivneri.............

Rest of logs and pictures will be updated soon.

Good stuff.

I guess the most interesting part of the log is yet to come.The route seems very interesting.Need to check it sometime in future.

OT:
@cosgeo-Isn't 2 days too little for Hampi?My guess is that you guys will loose most of time riding instead of exploring Hampi.

Breakfast on Foothills:

After some discussion with the locals we realized that we were way ahead of the turn for Ahupe. The only reason for this was tht I thought that nane ghat is after malshej where as itz opposite. So now to reach Ahupe we had to take the longer route from Junnar.

With nothing in the tummies we kept riddin . Soon on the foothills of Sahyadris where malshej ghats end and smiling at the Kalsubhai range in the opposite direction, we spotted a dhaba. Not actually a dhaba but a small road side joint. During the last G2G at malshej we had been to this place (Hope chetan n all remember it, bobby’s last ride). As it was early morning, around 9.30 am there was noithin ready. Shiva desperately wanted to have shev bhaji which he had tasted first time at the same place in August. Unfortunately there was no shev, so no bhaji. We settled for kanda pooha and tea. Till the cook was busy in kitchen I started to take some snaps around. The lens had some donkeys, cows and thorny bushes for breakfast. The pooha was takin ages and Anup as usual wanted to kill the owner for the delay. Finally the plates arrived and we refulled our tummies. In the cool climate of malshej the hot tea and warm plate of pooha was taskin awesome.

We started riddin agin after takin some directions from the owner. Eicher road map was always around to help us but we didn’t want to take ny risks. So we started movin, headin towards an unkown territory. After some 200 odd mts we saw a lake. A massive one which seemed to be filled recently by some dam thingy. We wanted to reach the banks of the lake, tried some offroadin but in vain. Later the villagers told us the only way to reach there was from the dhaba we had stopped for food. So instead of goin back some mts we decided to move forward.

So the now the plan was to go to Shivneri fort and then Ahupe and while commin back visit the lake. So we headed forward on NH 222. After some kms there was a inner road goin to junnar which we were supposed to rid eon. The road unlike the NH was very narrow and had many potholes, more than wht we have in mumbai during rains. We were a bit excited as we thought there would be a big change of offroadin in this type of terrain. The unicorn was leadin and suddenly on a turn the ZMA cam runnin. “Guys, U knw wht. There was a beautiful Hen, I jst killed it……….”. Shiva had ran over another animal, thK Goa it was not a cow this time. So now Shiva was demoted from “The Cow Killer” to”The Hen Killer”.


Before all the villagers would come huntin for us we ran from the place. The road ahead was a dirty patch of tramat windin down the ghats. It was a bit scary and almost impossible to bend because of all the rubble around. But as u knw Anup sirji is not goin to be stopped by shabby work of some contractor. Zooom we went through the ghats…………..

We reached the foothills of The Great Shivneri Fort, the birth place of the great maratha yoodha Shivaji.

We will meet Shivaji after a short time. Till then enjoy some road pics………….

Some photos after a long long time .

















Note: Click the pics for high res version .

wow someone was alive to do this.....gr8 job man....good to see some memories.....
where is the whole set of the pictures....i need them so desperately......
i had been to a lonavala g2g recently with calvin and some more xbhpians.....there were 2 crashes...some reckless riding...damn i miss my old buddies.....

plan for 24/25/26...shruti is not in town so that calls for a ride and a long one...this time ensuring that we spend enough time at the destination...so who all are in....

pls co-ordinate the place is not jaisalmer it will be somewhere in MP...so let me know at the earliest....

Shivneri Fort :

Shivneri fort was on Anup places to visit list for a long time. He used to crib always how much he wants to go to Shivneri and Singhagad. So finally we were at the foothills of the fort. I confess tht Im not such a big fort fan, but until the camera likes it I don’t have a problem. We were yet to decide wether r goin to climb all the steps and see th ruins of the fort or ride back. We asked some vendors around bout the no of steps and how much time it would take to reach to the top n back. They were quite hellpfull and the approx time was tht we would require was 2 hrs. With enough time in our hand me and shiva convinced Anup tht he can climb all those steps.

We literally dragged Anup to the top. I after a long time was walking. We bikers get so used to keeping ous ass’s on the seat, pressing a button and twisting the throttle that we almost forget the 11 no bus. So I tooo was struggling to climbing all the steps. God knw how the Marathas used to do this everyday, all this kellogs and bonvitta has made us so weak. We waited at all the gates, there were many of those. Took some snaps for which no one was ready to pose, tooo tired. The irony to all this was a family which we had started the climb after us consisting of children girls and old ladies overtook us halfway. Ohhh my God, salla puri izzat ka falloda kar diya..

So we had covered 3/4th distance n already our lungs were out. Has some ginger mixed lemon water, must have. Tht was mind blowing, thirst quenching and refreshing surprisingly and tht too jst for 5 rs. We finally made it to the top. I wanted to see a fort n ther was nothing of that sort around there. Everthing I could see was ruins so we all were quite disappointed. We asked some visitors that wht can we see here. Everyone pointed to a distant place, the birth place of Shivaji. As it was tooo far n there was no energy left after such a small endeavor we decided to jump down on to our bikes and ride home.

Shivneri is a nice fort to stroll along but it would not attract the ooo’s n ahhhh’s. The Archilogical department has put some nice sign boards which show the name of each gate you pass through and other structures. There are two gardens and a temple to visit. The climb is not that steep and the administration has renovated the steps for tourist. The only way to reach to the top of the fort is by climbing all the steps, there is no rope way or ny alternate mode.


Here are some pics...............




































Hope u like these. The secret trek will be posted shortly, hang on...............

WTF, wht wen wrong? Who crashed yaaar, Calvin didn't tell me nything bout it. Hope everyone's fine. Jst put some light on it yaaar.....

shruti? I thought u were kiddin (A bit shocked.....). If not jaisalmer, do u have ny other place in mind. Can we make it 23,24,25,26.

wow those are some nice pictures hope that anup has done the shivaji the real boss . Ha ha and rode to all the forts .

Awesome clicks Cos...!!

Guess now we have our very own Official Mumbai - Pune Photographer too..!!

Congrats for your new post cos..!!

Hey nice trip n pics Cos...

Note: Click the pics to view high res version.

WoW it only took 50 days , but damn its worth the wait

Cheers W