[Agastya_Drifter]

thanks hrag. that will help me a lot.

[hrag]

If any of you folks want the exact directions to get on to the Sawantwadi road from NH4 via Belagavi (Belgaum):

Assuming you know where Hotel Sankam Residency is (just off NH4 and on the exit road that takes you into Belagavi town).

Continue into the town (Sankam is on your right). The road curves left and joins another road - at the circle here take a right turn.
At the next circle (Savolli Rayanna Circle - looks like a mini park), head straight and you will hit Chanamma circle (can't miss this - statue of Kittur Rani Chanamma visible). Keep straight at the circle and take a right (40 degree) as soon as you see a BP bunk on your right. After the turn the BP bunk should be on your left. This road is the Belagavi - Sawantwadi Road.

Missing the last right (40 degree) turn will get you onto NH4A towards Londa.

[Agastya_Drifter]

Just before I set out this week to Goa, for which i will be most likely taking Belgavi-Amboli-Sawantwadi route... i also need to know from someone the road conditions for 2 routes:
-Tilari ghat (Tilari-Belgavi road off SH54 via Soloni or off Amboli-Sawantwadi rd)
-Chorla ghat on SH31

I have been on these routes years back, and these 2 are breathtaking routes and extremely steep.

Does anyone have any idea on the road conditions for tilari and chorla?

-Regards

[litesaber]

Originally Posted by hrag

If any of you folks want the exact directions to get on to the Sawantwadi road from NH4 via Belagavi (Belgaum):

Assuming you know where Hotel Sankam Residency is (just off NH4 and on the exit road that takes you into Belagavi town).

Continue into the town (Sankam is on your right). The road curves left and joins another road - at the circle here take a right turn.
At the next circle (Savolli Rayanna Circle - looks like a mini park), head straight and you will hit Chanamma circle (can't miss this - statue of Kittur Rani Chanamma visible). Keep straight at the circle and take a right (40 degree) as soon as you see a BP bunk on your right. After the turn the BP bunk should be on your left. This road is the Belagavi - Sawantwadi Road.

Missing the last right (40 degree) turn will get you onto NH4A towards Londa.

You are a mind reader hrag! I was just going to ask this today :-)

[Souvik]

Hi,

I am going to do Bangalore - Goa - Bangalore over the weekend. The route I have planned is:

Bangalore - Tumkur - Sira - Chitradurga - Devangere - Ranibennur - Haveri - Hubli - - Dharwad - Belgaum - Amboli - Sawantwadi - Panaji

Leaving Thursday night and back on Monday.

Lets see how the road holds up.

Souvik

[Agastya_Drifter]

Bangalore - Tumkur - Sira - Chitradurga - Devangere - Ranibennur - Haveri - Hubli - - Dharwad - Belgaum - Amboli - Sawantwadi - Panaji...

Above route is pretty good. I left Bangalore on 15th at 3am and reached Mapusa at 1.30pm. The only bad stretches were between Chitradurga and Haveri and short stretches between Belgaum and Amboli.

[Souvik]

Hi,

I went to Goa over the weekend and here are some details that might be helpful.

Left Bangalore after a day’s work. I stay at Bannergatta Road and hence took the NICE road to connect to Tumkur road.

I logged off from home at midnight. My drive was on Swift – VXI-ABS. Not a very fast driver and had to take a few breaks since I had not slept at all.

Bangalore – Tumkur
Distance covered – 79 Kms at avg of 67.71 KMPH. Toll paid: INR 86 (63 @ NICE and 23 at Tumkur).
Except from the NICE road junction till the Tumkur road toll plaza where there is road work going on and heavy truck traffic, rest route is smooth.

Tumkur – Sira
Distance covered – 58 Kms at avg of 63.27 KMPH. Toll paid: INR 40.
Bit of truck jam once you move out of the Tumkur toll plaza and land on the user paid fee road on the other side. Got stuck in the jam for 15 mins.

Sira – Chitradurga
Distance covered – 78 Kms at avg of 85.09 KMPH. Toll paid: INR 35.
Smooth like butter. High speed track all the way.

Chitradurga – Devangere
Distance covered – 65 Kms at avg of 65.00 KMPH. Toll paid: INR 35.
The route is quite bad in patches. Need to be vigilant on road dips, deep potholes. 2 railway crossing on the way too.

Devangere – Hubli
Distance covered – 145 Kms at avg of 62.14 KMPH. Toll paid: INR 37 (37 after Haveri / Bankapur).
Roads are nice after Haveri / Bankapur. After Devangere, you need to enter Ranibennur village. In the middle of the night since there was no one venturing outside, took 10 mins to pass. In the day, expect 30 – 45 mins.

Hubli – Belgaum
Distance covered – 97 Kms at avg of 77.60 KMPH. Toll paid: INR 71 (31 @ Hubli and 40 when you enter the bypass)
High speed again and very smooth all the way.
Get off the bypass when you enter Belgaum. Take the Amboli route.

Belgaum – Amboli
Distance covered – 68 Kms at avg of 42.95 KMPH.
Once you leave Belgaum, you hit 10 Kms of bad roads. Just be a bit slow and avoid the potholes. There are quite a few curves and feel like F1 drive there.

Amboli – Sawantwadi
Distance covered – 30 Kms at avg of 40.00 KMPH.
Ghat section and steep turns. Couple of turns have potholes.

Sawantwadi – Panaji
Distance covered – 64 Kms at avg of 45.18 KMPH.
Narrow roads and difficult to overtake early morning Mumbai-Goa Volvo buses. Roads are smooth.

Total Distance Covered: 684 Kms
Time Taken: 11:20 (includes breakfast, smoke breaks and red bull breaks to shake off my sleep and fuel stop at Belgaum exit)
Average speed: 60.99 KMPH
Total Toll Paid: INR 269

[goandude]

thanks sauvik for a useful update on the road conditions. Any work going on? I mean on the bad patches of haveri c'durga and the amboli belgaum road.

[Souvik]

Absolutely nothing going on. I did not see anyone working on any bad patch of the road.

Well, the roads are bad in 2 categories (and both have no one attending)

a. Where there are potholes.
b. The actual NH4 road just ends and you have to take deviations (either into village or on to the other side of the highway).

Wonder when someone will complete the NH4!

Souvik

[elendil]

Originally Posted by Souvik

Absolutely nothing going on. I did not see anyone working on any bad patch of the road.

Well, the roads are bad in 2 categories (and both have no one attending)

a. Where there are potholes.
b. The actual NH4 road just ends and you have to take deviations (either into village or on to the other side of the highway).

Wonder when someone will complete the NH4!

Souvik

I had visited goa during 1st week of october. It became quite an adventourous trip with landslip, highways cutoff by floods, no room availabilities etc etc.
We started on thursday 1st of october and instead of people telling to go via sagar-shimoga route or hulbli-karwar route or via belgaum..i choose the route via which i went in august. It was through kittur-bidi-londa-ponda-panjim. The road was okayish with potholes here and there for 10kms after kittur.
The road from londa onwards till goa border wasn't good...but it was there and it has not vanished..quite motorable. The problem we faced was very low visibility due to clouds. That 10-12 kms is a problematic zone. During my visit in august the nh4a was very smooth but this time it required a little careful driving with potholes emerging out from no where.

My decision was good as we reached in around 11 hrs, any other way people got stuck at ankola and heard that huge jam was there on bombay goa road during those days.

While we were there, news of floods and highway cutoffs started pouring in and so we decided to go via jogfalls and see its splendour after so much of rain.
While returning on 3rd october, nearing karwar from goa,we got stuck for 2-3 hours as floods have cutoff the highway. Then after karwar because of landslides and all we further got delayed by 2-3 hours. We had started late around 12 and so decided to stay at om beach.
After huge amount of confusion between where is om beach,gokarna and eating shabby food, we finally got a hotel to rest. The hotel we were getting were so shabby that i decided to start bangalore journey back, the only concern was whether there had been any landslides enroute or not. Uptill jogfalls the roads are narrower and are prone to slides.
Next day we started via jog falls. It was pleasant to see sunshine on this route after 3 days of continuous rain in goa,karwar and gokarna.

It has been 4th trip to goa this year and after this trip we got quite fed up and have promised to give goa a break for atleast 1 year . We didn't clicked a single pic this time as all looked so familiar
Only problem is we have seen almost all places in and around bangalore that there seems to be little choice whenever there is a weekend and so i wont be surprise if we break our promise and head off there sooner..

[VeluM]

This thread is really useful for people planning this trip. I wanted to go over the weekend of the 31st of October with my wife (she drives too) and wanted to know the best route to follow in a Spark (road conditions would have to be mostly good). I have a colleague who says he was able to make it to Goa from Bangalore via Tumkur & Davangere (NH 4) in 8 hours including breaks. In an Alto, four people plus a bit of luggage. Possible??

[Rajiv-Bang]

VeluM

Close to 650 Kms in 8 hrs with breaks, average speed has to be more than 80 Kmph. Sounds too good to be true. Again you lose time in Bangalore traffic, tumkur,whole lot of diversions from Chitradurga to Haveri and then the ghats sections. Whether you take Hubli- Karwar or Belgaum - Amboli route.

I live in Koramangala & have driven to Karwar in about 9 hrs starting at 7 am with just one lunch break (20 mins). I drive at 100-110 Kmph on the highway, cant go beyond that due to the tall boy Wagon-R though i have touched 130 kmph on occasions.

My place in Goa is about 100kms from Karwar. It takes about 2 to 2.5 hrs.

I guess 11-12 hrs is the minimum you should expect in a Spark

[Agastya_Drifter]

Hi VeluM
Bangalore-Tumkur-Belgaum (NH4)-Amboli-Sawantwadi .... this route in 8 hrs doesn't at all sound realistic with your specifics.
But you can still do Nelamangala-Goa in just under 9 hrs that is if you take the tillary route off Amboli route. through this route you will avoid sawantwadi and hit Mapusa directly via Bicholim. BUT, WARNING!! Tillary ghat has some of the worst roads and is very much deserted. Highly non-recommended but is the shortest route to Goa. High risk and your car will in all probability be subjected to a break down if you aim for a record like 8 hrs. It's ok for SUVs but definitely not for Spark.

Another route is the Chola Ghat on SH 31. One needs to take a diversion from M.K. Hubli, a small village en route Hubli. This will again connect you to the Bicholim-Mapusa road. Again very bad roads and not recommended. On this route you should take 11 hrs at an average of 60 kmph. Once again, on this route too, if you go for a record journey your car is bound to break down.

I have travelled on all of these routes, and I would strongly recommend Belgaum-Amboli-Sawantwadi-Mapusa. route. Bad stretches, but Motorable. At Amboli, before the ghats begin, you have Vithal Kamat restaurant which serves some really good snacks, before you get started with the ghats :-) This route should take you 11.30 hrs to reach Mapusa from Nelamangala.

The trick is - leave Bangalore at 3am or at least ensure that you are at Nelamangala at 3.30am - least traffic through out the route.

Have fun!

Agastya

[bmshiv]

Around 650 kms in 8 hours looks impossible for me. I had been to belgaum last weekend, and it took me 8 and half hours. Took 2 breaks for breakfast and lunch and usually maintained speed of 80-120 in my swift. The road near chitradurg is not good. I feel its better to plan for 11-12 hours journey. This will help in having many breaks and enjoying constant speed driving.

[Souvik]

Don't go by time bound driving. I do not think it is worth it. 8 hours to reach Goa may be possible if you take Tumkur toll gate to be Bangalore and Karwar check post to be Goa. But other than that, actual Bangalore to Goa in 8 hours in Alto, woah!

The Chorla ghat is pathetic. 15 Kms of road where only Sumo and truck can go. I tried that route this time, went 500 mts before Chorla town and came back. Its pathetic situation right after the "Welcome to Karnataka" board.

If you see the picture, the smooth road is Goa and the other side of smooth is Karnataka.

Avoid Chorla and drive safely through Amboli.

Souvik