waiting eagerly..........

Pictures of Day 2

Not getting time to complete the log.Will post it sometime in future.Posting pictures of Day 2

Start of the day(Heading for Hedvi)






Hedvi




Somewhere on the road while searching the way to Hedvi beach








The first view of the sun for the day(It was all foggy by this time)


Stopped at this location for a photo break














First sight of Guhagar Beach



Enjoying Misel Pav at the beach


Beach pictures with some biking element






Every dog has a day








More pictures of Guhagar
















On way to Veldoor(The road is in superb condition)




One of the sections of Vashisti river going towards Guhagar Beach (Posting just to give everyone an idea of the place)



Veldoor(The place is known more for Dabhol/Enron power plant than Vashisti river meeting Arabian sea









The famous now closed Dabhol power plant





These structures need no mention



Two time pass shots while taking a small break while coming back to Chiplun)




P.S:Please excuse me for the bad positioning of watermarks.Batch processed it so the position of watermark is same as the first image.

MG..the ghat roads look pretty tempting..! Which Ghat(name + location) is that..??

@inder-Which ghat section are you talking about?Kindly quote with the particular image.

Btw I'm still in the process of uploading pictures.

Now Why did you post pic of Misal Pav? My mouth has started watering because of that.

I was refering to this one..



Btw, the beach pics are really good...

That's not a ghat section.You can call it village road(Hedvi by any definition falls under the category of a village).

hedvi is one of those secluded beaches in maharashtra.small but nice.

Another nice set of pictures there MG..Those dew drops - did you get any macro of those? And take some time out and put the text as well; would be lovely.

^ This one has a very nice mood to it. Most of the pictures are very thoughtfully captured, reinforcing my belief that down south is ultra beautiful!

Good share MG!

@Aryan-Remember, I'm still a P&S person.

Sorry but no macro pictures this time round.Will make sure that I have something to show next time round.

The log will be up.I can assure you since I had finished half of it yesterday only but I'm too tired to complete it today.

Hopefully all the log and pictures will be up by this Saturday.

Believe me, its way easier to click some close up/ macro shots on an P&S than with a dedicated macro lens and I am telling you this first hand..

Would be waiting for the text to follow. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

^^You can call me lazy but somehow I was not interested towards macro this time round.

Posting so many pictures, and preparing the log; that's not something a lazy bum does!

*Ahem...
Anyways, we are mods, remember? Let's get back to the topic..

Finally the Day 2 log

The day started very early at 5.00a.m.Although the alarm was supposed to go at 5.30 but the sheer excitement of capturing the surrounding by morning light made me wake up earlier. Got ready and I was out by the first light itself (6.05a.m to be precise). One look and I could see my plan going down the drain. It was all foggy. I for one love to ride in foggy surrounding but since the plan was to shoot so this was not a perfect way to start the day.

Soon I found out that the effect of fog was mainly in some specific places. There were places where I was not able to see a single thing beyond 10mt while at other places the visibility was as good as 80-85mt. But I didn’t stop anywhere and headed towards the first destination of the day.

Hedvi like Velneshwar is another one-temple-one beach entity 5km south of Velneshwar. The road though narrow is in superb condition. After going for 3 km I found a board saying Hedvi 2 kms on my right. This one in even more shabby state than the one I found yesterday and to make things simple for me it was written in Marathi but somehow I managed. The last 1 km was a descend as if I’m going downhill but by now I realized that this is the characteristic of Konkan where you have small hills till the very point where the beach is starting. While going downhill there was one point from where the whole beach was visible.

Bad luck seems to be following me from the morning itself as the road ended abruptly. With no option left I again came back to that point from where the beach was visible. Standing there like a fool I gazed at the sea hoping that someone from village will come and help me out. I had the option to take the staircase to Hedvi village and finally to the beach but I din’t wanted to leave the bike alone. Finally there seemed to be some luck as I found a boy coming from the village side.

“Yeh bike ko beach ke pas kaise leke jaye”-How I take the bike near the beach?

Looks at the bike and then towards me
“Aap yeh sidi (stair) se utar jayiye warna aage se gumke aaeye”- Take the stair or come back from the other side.

He didn’t seem confident but I had no option left. Went back along the same way till the turn and took a different way this time.

Half an hour and I had tried all sort of routes but still not able to reach the beach. By now many people are out on road but no one was able to tell the correct route. Another 15 minutes and I dropped the idea of going to Hedvi beach. By now fog subsided quite a bit I could see sun showing who the real boss is. Found a barren piece of land which looked ideal for photography with various elements and perfect lighting to aid it.

After the photographic break I head to my second destination which is another beach named Guhagar and is 20km away from Hedvi. Roads are definitely one of the positive in this section of Konkan Maharastra(Not sure of other places).

Guhagar is a small town where too much development happened with the advent of tourism giving it no time to think and at the moment it looks like a choked town which will explode very soon. By the time I reached people were still coming to the terms of new day so the streets were pretty empty.

One look at the beach and I was like “Man this is huge” and the irony is that even at the doorstep of beach I didn’t realized that I’m so close to such a big beach. A narrow lane which take you to the beach passes through some houses and then a thick border of tall trees before falling into the beach. The beach was as long as 8kms and even after walking 1km along the beach I couldn’t spot either of the ends.

Parked the bike and had a good look on both sides. Like yesterday not a single soul was out there in the beach (This time round there was not even a villager/fisherman on the vicinity leave aside a tourist). This is what I call reaching a perfect place at a perfect time and things finally seems to be on my side after a morning which cannot be termed as good. The bhel puri/vada pav shops were all giving a deserted look but were also telling that this happens to be one of the most happening point at some point of the day.

The whole beach was mine but still I was not enjoying the moment completely because I was damn hungry and other than looking at the empty shop I had no other option. Finally a guy came to one of the shop and I was like where were you for all this time. Misel pav was simply outstanding (Till now I have tried misel in 5 other place and not a single time it was even half good as the one which I tried that day.

“Time for some action or should I say light, camera and action.”

It’s time to take the bike as close as possible to the waves and experience the fun which I had only seen in pictures till this time(Little did I knew that Newton’s third law is applicable everywhere). I checked the best way to go and without any problem took the bike close to sea waves. I placed my bike in such a way that the bike is around 5mt away from sea water. Parked the bike on side stand and turned to take the camera out to click some pictures. My hands had not even reached the camera when I felt a big jolt on my legs.

Turned around and I was like “Oh man! I’m completely screwed.”

The waves were coming to a fixed point till this time and I had parked the bike so as to keep a safe distance but this time round the waves travelled a bit more distance and now both me and the bike are under water. Before I could even react or think my next step more waves came and by now half of the bike’s tyre was under loose sand and both of us being continuously pulled inside the sand. Tried to pull the bike but found that it’s not a job for a single person. Looked everywhere but there was no one for help. Finally saw a person near the food stall. Tried waving and calling the person but it didn’t helped. With no choice I left the bike and ran towards the man. Took some time to convince him but he finally came. Both of us tried very hard but were not able to move the bike by even a single inch. Finally we decided that pulling and pushing won’t help at all and to take the bike out we need to pick it. Don’t know how we managed but we both did it and to be very frank the stranger (He was nothing short of a messiah for me considering the situation I was in) also gave 200% to rescue the bike. Thanked him from the bottom of my heart. He just smiled and went away. Looked at the bike and it seemed he was telling me “Do you have any idea what you are trying to do you fool”. Said sorry to the bike for this foolish act of mine.

The next 2 hours were spent relaxing and exploring various sections of beach. I will let the camera speak for me. Even though human activity had started to show its effect but still the beach is quite beautiful and asks for special attention.

The next stop was Veldoor which is 14kms from Guhagar. You have the famous Enron Power plant in Veldoor which is no longer operational. It is also the point whereVashishti river meets Arabian sea. The route was mainly a ghat section and at one point you can actually see one of the smaller tributary going to the beach(Picture posted). Veldoor is a nice place to spend couple of hours if you can tolerate the smell of dry sea fish lying everywhere on the road.

Veldoor to Chiplun was nonstop except for the small break of 15 minutes at my room in Velneshwar. Checked in a hotel called Royal Palace which was right next to NH-17 just outside the town. Royal Palace was supposed to be one of the best hotel (Atleast the magazine said so) in town except Taj and hence I checked in at that place but I soon realized that the hotel used to be in good condition some time back but now it will just pass with average scores. Lunch time was over at hotel restaurant so I moved into the same restaurant where I had food yesterday afternoon. Didn’t wanted to experiment and hence ordered the usual North Indian stuff and it was very good.

Chiplun is very much on the middle if someone is travelling from Mumbai to Goa using the Goa highway so it’s a popular stopover point for people frequenting this route. From tourist point of view there is Vashishti river running all along the Parshuram ghat just before Chiplun. There is also the famous Parshuram templein Pethe Parshuram Village.

Once back I felt very lazy and didn’t have the guts to go out again and have a look at Parshuram Temple. By 5.15 I felt slightly better and I was like “Let’s go for a small ride and see what all can be seen”. The temple was supposed to be somewhere around the ghat section named Parshuram. It took me 15 minutes to find the way for temple and another 10 minutes to reach there. First look and it felt a bit different but nothing extraordinary to write about. The light was already down so decided that I will leave the photography part for tomorrow. On way back spent some time on the ghat section from where Vashishti river was clearly visible. The spot was easily the best place in Chiplun.

Had a light dinner on hotel and went to bed pretty early to have a good sleep because I knew tomorrow will be quite hectic.

Route:Velneshwar-Hedvi-Guhagar-Veldoor-Velneshwar-Chiplun
Total Kms:175