Schools are going to start form 6 June and every time we planned to go somewhere in the summer the destinations seemed more hotter than Bangalore. So what we did was to stick around in Bangalore and did not go anywhere.
As school opening date were getting closer the two girls in the house (My Daughter and her mother) were getting more and more irritated as we have not gone out. So a quick plan to do a weekend+2 day’s trip was planned. Choices of place were the usual suspects which included Munnar, Takeedy, North Karnataka to flying distances like Manali and Darjeeling. Finally as we are set to fly out in end of June we decided to stick to driving distance and me being more fond of Mountains and Jungles choose Munnar over everything else.
Hectic search for place of stay in Munnar was done, route decided. Its worth acknowledging the help I received from other team BHP members on route and choice of stay. Finally hotel was booked, following members and threads helped
@NPV, @ampere
Booking was done at (
Chancellor Resort, Munnar)
Details in the following thread (
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...-homestay.html)
As weekend before the drive approached, the girls in the house were seemingly not very excited about the trip, probed further this is what they had to say “Daddy everyone has been to Goa, when will we go”, when I said soon sweetheart, I was reminded that this is what I had said when the summer vacations had started.
Quickly Munnar bookings were cancelled, and a quick reference to Avinash (@mobike008) thread helped (
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...zed-goa-4.html). Worth mentioning the help from @ranjitp1 on the choice of hotels. On Saturday booking was done on one of the listed hotels and dates locked for trip. Plan was to start on Thursday and reach by late afternoon, and start back on Sunday and reach home by Sunday evening.
I was not very clear about the route, with seemingly one being better and other being more scenic. So the choice for onward journey was Bangalore -> Hubli -> Ankola -> Karwar – South Goa. As we were going to stay in South Goa this route was perfect.
Thursday 31 May Morning
There is something about getting up early, especially for folks who are not used to it. They feel drowsy; sleepy the natural body timings get imbalanced. So I was up at 330 AM and was ready by 400 AM. It was a task to get the girls ready for the road. As usual I had made a bed out on the rear seat so as both can continue sleeping while I drive. I usually do this, as before both of them open their eyes we are half way through to our destination.
The girls finally got ready by around 5AM and we finally left home from Bellandur at about 515 AM. By the time we hit the highway towards Tumkur it was close to 6AM. The drive to Hubli was eventless, smooth and fast, we covered the distance of ~400Kms in about 5 hours. So by around 10AM we were in Hubli. I wasted about an hour not believing my GPS recommendations as it recommended a left turn after Haveri to connect to Yellapur and continued on my drive to Hubli.
The Hubli Karwar road is a old style two lane highway (One lane for each side) and its quiet scenic. One could maintain steady speeds on this road if there is no one up front.