^th Aug. It was still dark and raining at that hour. The rain slowed down our progress and it felt like a bad start but miraculously it stopped raining after we reached Satara and did not rain the next three days.



We maintained average speed of 80-90kmph with short bursts upto120kmph. Eager to munch miles on those straights after Kohlapur I started speeding and at 120+ kmph hit a UFO. We immediately stopped to inspect, found a little blood on my tank cowl and Ishank spotted a dead sparrow on the side of the road with its body bent at impossible angle. The incident brought me back to my senses and after that I kept the speedo hovering at comfortable 100kmph.



On Entering Karnataka we saw people celebrating Independence Day, there were processions of autorickhshaws and bikes proudly carrying the Tricolour. Almost every commercial transport vehicle had at least one Indian Flag adorning it. It was surprising but felt good to see people enthusiastic about the day.We stopped for tea at Hubli and asked the roadside vendor the best way to Hospet. Along with proper directions he gave us the weather report of Hampi for the past week and forecast for the weekend. The guy was pretty interested in our travel and started casual conversation about riding bikes, places we belong to, our occupation and in the end bid us a safe ride. One of the biggest advantages of riding is that you meet the some of the nicest people which you would probably never meet travelling by any other means.We left the Bangalore highway and headed towards Hospet via Gadak and Koppal. After crossing Koppal we started seeing the famous boulders on the hills announcing that we were nearing our destination.



The whole place was beautiful. Paddy fields with boulders in between make the whole scenery unique to the place. It being a rainy season the local dams were brimming with water, streams were in full flow, snakes were out in great numbers and everything looked clean and fresh. With the foreground of raging Tungabhadra and endless hills with boulders stacked we saw the sun go down from Anjana Matha Temple


Boulders Boulders everywhere

Tungabhadra River

Harsha and Ishank


We started at 5am on Sunday morning for Pune. We were sorry for the people who might have woken up with the sound of three bikes warming up, when we look back now only Ishank should have been sorry because the exhaust notes of the other two bikes were drowned by the thump of his Enfield.The dawn was a magical, with sun rising behind us the whole place had a golden hue. There were birds, most probably owlets, sitting on the road. They would fly as soon as the bikes approached them and land ahead on the road only to fly away again. I wanted to click photographs but since we had a lot of ground to cover so did not stop for some 60 kms until we found an open roadside coffee Best thing about roadside tea vendors in South India is the filter coffee, the best coffee one can have. After couple of coffees each and some Parle G we
headed towards Hubli.



1st stop at our return leg. Roadside filter coffee..bliss
Honda Varadero