8 Days Konkan Motorbike Expedition

It was couple of months long, a dream was hovering in my mind to go for a motorbike journey exploring heart of Konkan. Since i had Avenger 220 in my life :), i just feel to hit the road explore world around me. Though i had a long ride to GOA, this was going to be a different lifetime experience.

I floated my travel plans to some of my friends and important thing did was declared my leave plans in my company :). That must be important part of any vacation planned by working folks. Based on season and availability of interested friends we decided to begin our journey during Ganpati Festival week. Sep - Oct is good period to visit konkan, and weather forecast was also showing good signs. Another reason was that we would have got a chance to witness ganpati festival in Konkan.

Few of the friends were very interested but semi-finally it boiled down to 3 of us. We decided to begin on 22 Sep 2012. But one had to drop due to medical emergency at his home. We postponed travel plan to 29 Sep but he was unlucky. Finally only 2 of us: me and Rohit decided to begin on 29 Sep 2012 :).

Our main aim was to explore the Konkan SEA-SHORE line like the Californian Coastal drive. And with the 8 days time period we had Malvan to Alibag on our radar. Initial plan was to start from Malvan first just to avoid more Ganpati Festival crowd. We continued with same plan for our 29 Sep travel.  Weather forecast has shown possibility of rains on day 2 and day 3 but now there was no backing off :).

Finally me and Rohit came with some rough list of places to cover throughout our journey. Frankly we had a concrete plan for first and second day only and had decided to prepare further day plans at runtime :). Its very difficult to plan and predicate future, days ahead when it is based on many factors. We had anticipated few things, believed and moved on :).  Within less available time i managed to gather the required biking accessories. We were all set with my Avenger 220 & Rohit's ThunderBird 350. I was damn excited and was looking for it because it was first longest journey of my life and wonderful experience waiting for us :).

Putting below marked map of our whole journey we covered first :), to give you quick whole picture. I have tried to cover all days journey in details further

Konkan Travel - Day 1

The long awaited day of the journey had arrived. It was 6.00 AM and weather of the day was good. It took 10-15 mins to load the lagguage on both the motorbikes and we were all set to take off for the day. We began around 6.15 AM. Tarkarli beach was the only destination for the day. We had to cover approx 450 kms for the day. It was first time for Rohit to ride that much distance.  

Bikes ready with lagguage loaded..

We headed towards KOLHAPUR. We stoped at NATRAJ HOTEL on the way to KHED SHIVAPUR for breakfast. This is one of my frequent breakfast place whenever i go on NH-4. This place is crowded even at early morning as all the KSRTC buses stops here. Our route to Tarkarli was
Kolhapur -> Phonda ghat, Ganganbawda-> Kankavli -> Tarkarli, Malvan.
This route was not new for me as such. Driving in Phonda ghat is awesome experience, one should try after rainy season. I had taken this route when visited GOA :).  We continued our journey with few quick breaks for some snaps around.

I wanted to check my GPS about how well it works with available support on my bike. Below was my so called indian jugad GPS stand :D. This discovered adjustment was a wonderful part of journey helped me all over :). I had adjusted my mobile based GPS on my tank bag pocket.  This thing worked for me Daytime, Nightime, and in rainy situation as well.. :P.

Somewhere around 10.30 we entered in the Kolhapur. Idea crossed my mind to enquire about the traffic situation as it was Ganpati Visarjan day. A localite person suggested us to pass by Rankala lake before afternoon to avoid the traffic. The person was puzzled and curiously asked us looking at our biking gears and Rohit's camera if we are some journalist covering something in kolhapur :).

We were still fresh and had to cover a long distance ahead. We had decided to take lunch break in Kankavli after covering major portion of the journey.
Some snaps on the way to Kankavli:

It was past lunch time and now we were hungry.  We reached kankavli and stopped to have some food.  Tarkarli is approx 60 kms from kankavli. The break gave us energy to continue our journey. There was checking going at all coastal region. we had to get down 2-3 times for checking which slowed down our speed. Around 3.30 we reached our destination Tarkarli. We could feel the change in environment. We had done our booking at a place called Tarkarli Beach Niwas, just 5 mins walking distance from the beach.

After checking in and settling ourself it was time to step on the beach. I enquired about our next day adventure activities to the hotel person. It was a great disappointment :(. Snorkling and Squba diving activites were shut down due to monsoon changes and was not going to start until  November. We had to rework on our plan for next day. As it was sunset time we forget everything for the day and just enjoyed the peaceful nature and sunset. As they say this beach is less crowded and you do get serene feeling. Now the beautiful journey of konkan had begin :).
Some random pics of sunset..

We had to come back from beach as it was very dark then and we did not carry a torch  We had a Konkani Veg Thali with a Surmai fish for our dinner

We had two night stay plan at this place. we had decided to cover till Vijaydurg area with the current Stay. That was lovely end of first day journey.

Konkan Travel - Day 2

The Day 2 began with a pleasant-full morning and we did not felt we had a longest 450 kms journey on the previous day. Our plan for the day had got changed now and first thing to do for the day was visiting Sindhudurg Fort. We had a heavy breakfast and left at around 7.30 with just single bike of Rohit for Malvan Bandar(port).

Random pics around Tarkarli and Malvan Port:

Beautiful temple in Tarkarli

Malvan is compact town with historical places and beautiful beaches. Nature of the people here found to be good and helping. This place has its own beauty and lifestyle :). Malvan port is approx 4 kms from Tarkarli. Southern part of Malvan (Vengurla beach, Bhogwe beach etc) was on less priority for us as it would have added too much for the day.

The port was less crowded. We could see the view of fort from the port. There were few people waiting for a boat to take us to the fort. we had to talk to a local fisherman for a boat and gathered people around us to countable size, then the fisherman agreed us to take us. They need at least 20 people group. The fisherman agreed for 100 bucks for a return trip. After spending almost 1 hour for boat, we started for fort at around 9 am. It takes 10-15 mins to reach the fort.

Distant view of fort

Sindhudurg is one the longest water distance SEA fort. It is one of strongest fort standing in the SEA. One will wonder about its construction looking at it. We had 1 hour time to visit the fort.  We can see the strength of the fort once we see the layers hitting against the wall.

Malvan is famous for its fish market held in morning. We had missed it but had another chance to experience it :). Another crazy thought crossed in Rohit's mind. We wanted to go with some fisherman in sea and experience fishing. We left this thing for next morning to do :D.  We were back to port visiting Sindhudurg at around 11 am.

We moved on to visit Vijaydurg fort and decided to cover Kunkeshwar temple and rest of the beaches in between on the return journey. Vijaydurg fort is approx 77 kms from Malvan and 36 kms from Devgad. Devgad is very small town compared to Malvan and did not seem to have good accommodation so we decided to stay in Malvan and cover these places.

On the way to vijaydurg:

Vijaydrug fort is a small and old fort on Sindhudurg coast. It is accessible by road from one side and covered by water from all three sides. We had a round on the fort. You get a good view of Vijaydrug beach and the sea around from the top.

It was almost 3 pm, we had to head back as couple of things where left to visit. We came back to Kunkeshwar temple. This is one of the oldest temple during pandwa's time.

It was almost 5 pm and we wanted to spent the evening at Tarkarli beach again :). As we were travelling from complete sea shore line we tried to visit the beaches on the way we can. The environment was very fresh and full of pure oxygen on this Vijaydurg visit.

We spent the last evening on this beach and it was time to leave the place, but we had our fishing plan yet to be executed. We came back after dark and had dinner went for sleep little early so that we could make it for fishing if lucky.