...Indian on Voyage...: ...Off beat track to Alibaug...

What could have been done in 90kms.. we did it after driving 250kms..

What could have been a 3 hours drive.. turned out to be 9.5 hours of drive..

What should have been an average 0mts elevation.. We ascended to nearly 1550mts..

Thats what we did this long weekend..

One leave and you have the freedom of having 4 days at hand on the Independence day weekend..

But we couldnt have all 4 days.. We had to be back in Mumbai on 17th for some personal reasons which couldnt be avoided..

So I set myself exploring around on different websites about locations near mumbai.. I stumble upon a lot of them..

We try to check for room availability at locations we think would be apt, but all of them are sold out.. all hill stations or non-beach locations are sold out..

Finally we found something we liked at first sight.. but the location wasnt really what we were looking for.. It was a resort somewhere close to Kihim.. Close to Alibaug, which is the start of the Konkan stretch..

The UTropicana Resort...

So we were all set for the leisurely trip to a beautiful resort... It would have been a 3 hours drive from Mumbai to Alibaug on the NH17.. but then I had some other plans in mind as well.. I wanted to have a good long drive before I reached the resort... So here is what we did...

We decided to leave from home pretty late by my standards.. We set ourselves to leave by 8.30am on the I-day.. But I woke up late, and we were off the target by just about an hour... Finally at 9.30am, we roll..

We take the Sion-Panvel highway.. Reach Vashi in no time and then I decide not to take the Palm beach road, but take the normal route through Sanpada-Juinagar-Nerul-Belapur-Kharghar-Panvel and start our journey towards Lonavala on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway..

Damn my senses that day.. The road is under construction, I did not know that.. and all my calculations of timing go for a toss.. The roads near Juinagar was really a mess.. But then we had no choice..

I take the first stop somewhere on the expressway in the ghat for a beautiful green view of the mountains..

The traffic was sparse.. I was surprised.. may be because I was really late on the road.. We finally take the right towards Amby valley, Lonavala.. and take another stop near the lake..

We drove past Bhushi dam, which was as usual very very crowded.. I dont dare to stop at such places.. Kept driving as I wanted to take the internal route from Amby valley towards Kolad..

As we kept going higher, the visibility got lesser.. At one point the fog was so dense, that it was very very difficult to spot anything..

I had the google maps downloaded offline for help.. and boy were they of help.. I would recommend everyone going for such off beat tracks to keep the map handy..

We drove past Ghusalkhamb, one of the turns which would take you to Paud.. but thats not the road I wanted to take..

So we keep driving towards Amby valley.. Finally found the right, just before Amby valley which takes you through the country roads and till Kolad..

The roads are good at places and broken beyond recognition at other places..

But all this travel through broken roads is worth the views you get..

There were streams flowing on the road...

We kept driving.. We kept stopping.. and we kept stopping again and again for capturing the picturesque landscapes..

Another 360 degree panorama from photosphere on my nexus.. click on the image to watch it in google+..

We were on the right track but we were way behind our schedule..

The navra navri and bhatji mountain..

We stopped for lunch at an awesome place.. van-bhojan it would be..

After a good lunch, we started towards Kolad..

Another beautiful spot, another temptation to stop... and we did.. I took out my camera, tripod and was all set to click.. and then it started raining cats and dogs.. and the wind, ohh awesome ! just couldnt do justice to what I saw..

First bird of the trip... Common Quail..

We were close to Tamhini and thats the road we wanted to take towards Kolad..

Cattle Egret..

Finally we exited the internal roads on to the NH17 at Kolad.. and phew even the views on the NH17 were no less than breath taking..

At the end of the not so long in terms of kms but long in terms of hours, we reached the hotel.. and the first look, I was so happy I chose it..

Next morning, I decided to take a stroll around the hotel premise, in search of birds as usual :)

The female of the purple rumped sunbird having bath..

Female of the common Iora

Scaly breasted Munia..

We then decided to take a look at the Alibaug beach.. Last time I was there some years ago, I was totally disappointed.. but the beach has changed a lot.. the water looked very clean and the beach was also great..

Alibaug fort in distance..

The internal roads as usual are awesome !!!

We had lunch at Hotel Ramakanth, right opposite to the Alibaug bus stand.. the food was great and was cheap too.. After lunch, we decided to drive towards Revdanda.. But instead went to Naigaon beach.. another secluded, awesome beach..

While driving towards Revdanda, we came across a huge pond.. and there were a lot of lotuses in the pond.. I was damn sure of finding a bird I always wanted to click.. a pheasant tailed Jacana.. but what I found was a Bronze winged Jacana instead.. not bad though :)

Bronze winged Jacana..

Lesser Whistling duck..

Purple swamphen and the bronze winged jacana..

White bellied Seagull..

At the Naigaon beach ..

We then decided to check out the closest beach.. the Kihim.. and it is the most pathetic of the lot.. the beach was all littered with plastic and was thoroughly disappointing..

But still clicked some long exposure shots..

On the last day we woke up to the rains.. but how could I miss those birds again.. So off I went for some more birding.. the day was not great for birding though..