Greetings BHP-ians,
This is my / our (joint effort with my wife) first attempt at travelogue post here, hence please excuse if this write-up is not up to the usual standard seen here. Feedbacks are welcome for refinement and posts.
I usually refer to this forum for seeking travel driving information and recently was reading up on the BLR – GOA – BLR road routes for our first ever long (> 600kms) road trip. Hence, once this 1,100 kms trip was completed, I thought I would contribute back to the forum with my travel experiences. So, here it is..
The mission – Road trip to Goa and back for two, in our 2-year young Creta (SX Petrol)
The schedule –
• BLR – Hubli – Wed 18th Dec 2019
• Hubli – Anmod – Goa – Thu 19th Dec 2019
• Goa – Chorla – Hubli – Mon 23rd Dec 2019
• Hubli – BLR – Tue 24th Dec 2019
The constraint – Long road trip could re-trigger back pain and so mandatory stop over at some appropriate place
The Route contenders – Option 1) Bangalore – Shimoga – Karwar – South Goa – North Goa Too long a drive and didn’t make sense for a N.Goa trip to enter from S.Goa
Option 2) Bangalore – Hubli – Anmod Ghat – Goa Shortest route and hence shortlisted
Option 3) Bangalore – Hubli – Chorla Ghat – Goa Second shortest route and hence shortlisted too
As we did not know about the road conditions of the Ghat sections, we decided to check once more whilst in Hubli and choose the further route
The Preparation –
1. Thanks to the free Hyundai service camp that was ongoing, I was quickly able to get a free basic car check-up and top-up of essential fluids (they did charge Rs.100 though)
2. Got Nitrogen filled up in all 5 tyres
3. Got fuel tank filled up to brim at Shell
4. Offline Google map download of entire geography from BLR to Goa
5. Emission certificate renewed
6. Verified existence of all required driving documents in hard copy and soft copy (digilocker)
7. Got top-up of FASTTag done from app on Play Store.
8. Downloaded online music playlist just in case connection was bad on the way
The Travel –
Started at around 3 pm on 18-Dec-2019 from Bangalore after Lunch. Since we stay in North Bangalore, moving out of the city was faster. We took the Bangalore- Tumkur-Chitradurga-Hubli route. Road was really good till Chitradurga and we could cover longer distance quickly.
Took a 30 min break at Vinayak hotel located on the service road which is on the left of the highway. The place is quite basic and ok for a beverage/loo/drive break. From Chitradurga to Hubli there were lots of diversions (road work) which made our driving progress slow but we still reached Hubli by 9 pm. Total time taken from Bangalore was about 6 hrs.
Our overnight stay was in Hubli - we checked-in at Hotel Naveen. Large hotel adjoining beautiful large lake and hence a great view from room, good food, nice lobby and restaurant ambience, ample parking space, good walking path between lake and mini hotel garden. It cost us around Rs.3920/night for a double bed with breakfast which was on higher side of our budget - but it was so worth it as we enjoyed the place. Since we directly checked into the hotel without any online booking, they gave us a 24hr checkin- checkout option. So, we stayed a little late than the ideal morning check out time and started out to Goa the next day only by 1pm (I know it was late, but hey we were on holiday and driving and so could afford small time luxuries like these!)
For our travel from Hubli to Goa, we decided to go ahead with the Anmod Ghat route as we had heard from hotel front desk (who got input from regular drivers) that the route had been opened for travel. Google map estimated the trip to be around 5 hours but our actual travel took longer.
Compared with the Bangalore-Chitrdurga route, the Anmod Ghat route was bad. It was mostly mud road with traces of tarred roads, if at all. JCBs, trucks, and other road laying machines were seen throughout the stretch. I doubt if cars with lower ground clearance would have a good experience in passing through this route. Apparently its the shortest route from BLR but as work is still going on, the road condition is bad (in my opinion). There were brief stretches of picturesque road passing through forest on either side, but this was only briefly. Here are some pictures of the route on the day of our travel.
Post Anmod Ghat, we took a brief recovery break at some non-descript hotel and then proceeded on the path as dictated by the Google lady. Passing through Ponda, Panaji, a wonderful bridge, and some more roads (that made us more impatient – destination so near, yet so far away), we finally finally reached our Baga hotel at 6.45pm.
After enjoying 4 nights in warm and happening North Goa, it was time to head back to Namma Bengaluru.
Due to the bad road experience of Anmod Ghat, we decided to try out the Chorla Ghat route on way back home. It was slightly longer route as per Google maps (About 30 mins more). We started from Baga at around 1pm and navigated to Hubli via Chorla Ghat which we felt is a more beautiful route relatively. The whole route seemed like passing through a dense forest area and gave a more pleasant homecoming feeling.
Barring a couple of Kms spread over the entire route where the road was a little bumpy, the whole Chorla Ghat travel was good to drive and we regretted not taking this route while going to Goa. The route we drove by was Goa- Chorla Ghat- Jamboti-Belgavi-Khanpur-Hubli. While passing through the Ghat we found a place to eat lunch right in the middle of nowhere. It was called Delta hotel - a small place having lots of monkeys around, but food was ok. Reasonably priced and decent loos.
(This place apparently has a stay facility and its own
website as well – just saw this after reaching Bangalore)
After lunch at Delta, we started towards Hubli and reached around 6-45 pm. We stayed overnight at Clarks Inn which turned out to be a very ok hotel. Priced at Rs 3920 with breakfast, it was a little expensive based on the maintenance/service provided in the place. Curiosity of wanting to stay at another Hubli hotel got us here. The breakfast buffet spread was good though. There was a car wash facility bang opposite their entrance, which was a plus point for getting my Creta bathed.
Next day we started towards Bangalore from Hubli at 1pm. The route was Hubli- Haveri- Chitradurga- Tumkur- Bangalore.
We made a lunch stop at Kamat hotel at BYADAGI. Loo was not maintained well, probably the Coffee Day outlet’s loo next door might have been better (in hindsight thinking). Kamat Hotel was very busy with limited seating and people sharing all empty spaces. Food was good and reasonably priced.
Again roads till Chitradurga were not great with lots of diversions but after that phase, the drive till Bangalore was a breeze. We reached home by 8pm.
The Summary
1. Creta is a great car for long drives!
2. Bangalore to Goa via Chorla Ghat seems to be good option as of Dec 2019 when compared with option of Anmod Ghat