the 1650km road trip... Day 1 : Drive to Tarkarli..

It all started with my boss granting me a 5 days leave even though I had joined the company just a month back.. So glad to have such a gratious boss..
Wife had 2 weeks off before she joined her new company..
Yes we both have jumped into new organizations now :)

It was decided that we do a road trip to the best beaches near the west coast of India..
The Air tickets to Kashmir and other places discussed were costing a bomb..

Initial itinerary was to travel to Tarkarli and come back via the Coastal route.. Going through Vijaydurg-Ganapatipule-Velneshwar-Harihareshwar-Kashid and back to Mumbai..
But the plan changed as we got the booking in Goa for free (courtsey, mother-in-law, thank you :)) and the plan changed to :
Day 1 :  Drive to Tarkarli
Day 2 : In and around Tarkarli
Day 3 : Drive to Goa
Day 4 : In and around Goa
Day 5 : In and around Goa
Day 6 : In and around Goa
Day 7 : Check out of Goa and come back to Mumbai via Kolhapur (with stay somewhere near kolhapur)

Day 8 : Drive back to Mumbai..

a Glimpse of what we saw..

Day 1 : Drive to Tarkarli ..

Mumbai to Tarkarli, according to the maps is around 500kms via NH17 and 530kms via NH4.. We decided to take the NH4 as it is faster and safer compared to the NH17..

We were supposed to start at 6 am, but the packing et al took time and finally hit the bed on the Friday at around 12.30am.

Got up on time, but still got delayed and left Matunga at 6.45am..

The journey through the Mumbai roads was a breeze expect for some traffic at the Vashi toll naka.. Otherwise it was an uneventful journey..

We decided to munch on with whatever we had bought in the car and not stop for breakfast anywhere as it consumes time..

Also, this was the first time that I was going somewhere without really booking a room for us. So had to reach Tarkarli before sundown and get a good hotel to stay in.

Ever since I saw this https://picasaweb.google.com/106696700871182505180/RideToGaganbavda?noredirect=1#5421325634883704338 in Deepak's album, I so wanted to visit this ghat, so that I could click a similar image..

Getting to Kolhapur was easy, but finding way around Kolhapur to reach Gaganbavda was THE most difficult part of the journey.. We wasted nearly an hour in my quest to have that one photo at Gaganbavda..

but i dont think I could do justice to the time spent..

The road conditions at the start and end of the ghat are not in great shape, but the view surely made up for the bad roads :)

I kept driving with some photo breaks in between..

We reached Tarkarli at around 4.30pm.. and then began the search of a hotel to stay.. I had already checked, MTDC was full.. I had shortlisted a few hotels looking at the information available on the net..
One of them was the Sea view resort .. We searched for it and its bang on the beach.. But the drawback of this hotel is , they dont have a generator.. and the electricity supply is not really reliable..
The rooms were clean, but not having a generator was a major put off..

I had seen amazing photos of a resort called the Blue water resort.. I had the number stored, so called up the reception.. He said, yes sir the rooms are avalable.. Without wasting time we were at the resort..

The first impression was good.. and then looking at the rooms and the view from the room, I just fell for it..