[quattroa4]

"Sheer Driving Pleasure " should be the tag line NHAI should give to this road of Malshej Ghat rather then BMW to their cars nowadays. Yes, it is that good. If you crave for fast winding roads, tight twisties and chicanes with beautifully laid tarmac with proper camber angles, I beg you to drive on this road in your favorite car and have the pleasures of driving close to that of driving in the hills near Maranello or Sardinia, for that matter, in India.

To be precise, this stretch of road (180 km of pure bliss) starts at Ahmednagar and ends at Murbad (Thane district) of NH61, which further continues to Kalyan. Now, if you are coming from the Mumbai side, then it will be Mumbai - Thane city - Kalyan - Murbad. Thane to Murbad is 51 km and can be covered in hour or so if the traffic is light. After leaving Ulhasnagar or bypassing it, the traffic becomes thinner with rapid progress made thereafter. Now, on this stretch from Murbad to Ahmednagar or vice versa, there are some speed breakers at the entrance and exit of some 5/6 villages (but they are marked) and some bad patches due to heavy rains in the ghats. But, these are no more then some hundred meters in all, which is quite manageable.

For meals, there is a wonderful restaurant called Ivy by Chateau Indage at Narayangaon. The food is excellent here. It's a bit off course as you have take a diversion at a place called Ale Phata, where this road NH61 intersects the Nashik - Pune highway. You have to travel 13 km towards Pune to reach this place, but it's worth it.

Also, if you want to stay at Malshej, then there is a big MTDC resort on the top of the mountain, which, location wise, is a spot on. Other private resorts are also there, but they are few and far from Malshej. Spending a day or two at MTDC is worth it as the resort is always covered in clouds in the monsoons. Further, you can wake up early and have a blast on this empty road 25-30 km on either side and come back with a grin as wide as you can get it to be. But you have to book room on the MTDC website in advance as walk in bookings are not taken here. There is another one called "Saj by the Lake " down the ghat and it is a good one too.

Now, coming back to the road, it will rekindle the enthusiast in you in the right way and in this season, it is very scenic too with lush greenery everywhere. I never miss a chance to be on this road whenever the opportunity arises and this time around, it was the Range Rover Vogue 4.4 TDV8, which was my weapon of choice. It has a 4,400cc engine developing 315 BHP and weighing 2.7 tonnes. Still, the power to weight ratio works out to be 116 BHP / tonne. So it is neither too slow nor too fast, but still on the faster side though and more than many hot hatches we have in the market today.

Since I purchased it in March 2020 (second hand), I had never got a opportunity to drive it around corners and hence picked it for this trip. Did it prove to be a good choice for such roads? The answer is a big yes! Smitten by her all over again as I could not believe that such a big beast could handle so neutrally and stay planted on the tarmac during such a spirited drive. It was awesome to experience a car with such a massive weight and girth taking corners with such a finesse - absolute joy! I thanked myself 10 times for being on Team-BHP and reading that thread of fellow BHPen BlackPearl, which prompted me to take the decision to buy a Range Rover.

Body roll is there, but it is taken for granted in such a huge vehicle and didn't cause that much of a concern as the road was really good with no bumps and potholes mid-corner. A good road can take care of some dynamic deficiencies of a vehicle I think. If Aamby Valley road in Lonavala is a trailer, then I think, this road (NH61) is a full blown picture of it. Let the pictures do the talking now. Here is the Google link to the location.

https://goo.gl/maps/UPrTJhKLBbXR941Y6

The map:


The mighty Vogue in company of almighty nature:








And here are the curves, bends and chicanes:




Sweeping right:


Dead straight:


Fast and flowing road:




The road is laid with proper markings, signs and has paved shoulders too:




Some nature snaps here. I couldn't capture more as there was too much fog even in the afternoon and given the altitude of this place ,it's covered in clouds most of the times in the monsoons:

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[sureshkumar]

Wow. A beautiful road and the Vogue to drive. Heavenly. Who cares about body roll?
Wishing you many more miles of pleasure driving.

[saikarthik]

Awesome, and am a bit envious right now. You reminded me of my Nashik years where I would ride out every weekend to some random place and get awestruck. The Western Ghats in monsoon season is a paradise.

[anandavinash]

Wow! This brings back a lot of memories. I first went to Malshej Ghat in 2001 with my family to stay a few nights at the MTDC resort (Flamingo I think it was called then) you wrote about. On that trip, we arrived at around 9:00pm in thundering rain with 5 people in a Fiat Palio 1.2. The resort only had us and cooked a delicious hot meal. On that trip, we also visited two of the Ashta Vinayak temples (Lenyadri & Ozar) and Shivneri Fort (Birthplace of Maharaj Shivaji).

Subsequently, I made three more visits to Ozar with friends as that was one of the temples (along with Shirdi Sai Baba) that ensured good results post Engineering exams. :-) The trips were made with a Fiat Sienna, Fiat Palio and a Honda City 2nd Gen.

Haven't been on the Malshej Ghat roads now in over 16 years and I am glad to read that it is still a pleasure to drive on. It helps to have a car as nice as yours I am sure. Thanks for the share.

Here's a picture of me 20 years ago at one of the lakes close to Malshej

[quattroa4]

Originally Posted by anandavinash

Wow! This brings back a lot of memories. I first went to Malshej Ghat in 2001 with my family to stay a few nights at the MTDC resort (Flamingo I think it was called then) you wrote about. On that trip, we arrived at around 9:00pm in thundering rain with 5 people in a Fiat Palio 1.2. The resort only had us and cooked a delicious hot meal. On that trip, we also visited two of the Ashta Vinayak temples (Lenyadri & Ozar) and Shivneri Fort (Birthplace of Maharaj Shivaji).

Subsequently, I made three more visits to Ozar with friends as that was one of the temples (along with Shirdi Sai Baba) that ensured good results post Engineering exams. :-) The trips were made with a Fiat Sienna, Fiat Palio and a Honda City 2nd Gen.

Haven't been on the Malshej Ghat roads now in over 16 years and I am glad to read that it is still a pleasure to drive on. It helps to have a car as nice as yours I am sure. Thanks for the share.

Here's a picture of me 20 years ago at one of the lakes close to Malshej

Attachment 2198836

Now, I must say Wow after reading your post , what good memories those are, wonderful.
I first went there in 2007 when I was traveling to Mumbai for some work and decided to take different route then the usual Pune Mumbai expressway . Bingo !!! The road was done for me . Then afterwards everytime I went to Mumbai , took this route only and it is still maintained in that good condition, infact now even better then before.

[vredesbyrd]

Nice travelogue!

To be honest, I've never seen one outside city limits or ever away from malls or just parked at mansions.

So glad that you're actually driving it. Please keep driving the RR, as much as you can, whenever you can!

That aside, how is the reliability holding up? If it's good enough, you can try the Leh/Spiti circuit or even the North-East.

[onjon]

We drove up to the Car Wash waterfall from the Ahmednagar side of Malshej Ghat in early September 2021. Barring a few stretches of road with potholes, it is a great and scenic drive. If anyone is interested to virtually experience the drive or see the current road conditions, here is a video from where the Ghat start to the waterfall.

https://youtu.be/5xi4q9s8Jak