[Draunzer21]

I was thinking of going on a short trip with my wife and daughter and first we thought of Tapola which is near to Mahabaleshwar, people also call it mini Kashmir. We talked to an agro tourism resort and were almost going to finalize that but then because of heat we decided let us not go there as agro tourism involves visiting farm, boating and all which won't be too much fun during summers; then we thought of going to mahabaleshwar but all resorts were costly.

I just casually asked my wife, are you interested in Diveagar and she had not been there earlier while the last I had visited Diveagar was in 2012. She said yes and we started making plans on Wednesday to travel on Saturday. Searched all resorts and read all the reviews, MTDC (Exotica) was not available and I was glad it was not available (more on this later). Finally after lot of research, went ahead and booked Aarnas resort costing 9k for 2 nights (11th - 13th May). It was 1 min away from the beach by walk.

I went through multiple forums and decided that we will visit Suvarna Ganesh temple at Diveagar, Suhas Bapat Khanawal and then we also planned Harihareshwar and Srivardhan visit as we had multiple days.

As we have 16 months old daughter, we started deciding what all things we can do. The plan was to reach Diveagar on 11th, spend evening at the beach, visit Srivardhan and Harihareshwar on 12th, Suhas Bapat Khanawal for veg food on 12th dinner and then spend 13th morning on Diveagar beach and then visit Ganesh temple while coming back.

Having a plan is always good but we knew that not everything would go according to the plan.

I and wife took leave on Friday and did all the packing and got some snacks prepared for our daughter as we make sure we give her some food every 2 hours.
I checked the oil levels, checked air pressure in all tires and visited nearby petrol station and did a tank full.

DAY 1:

Saturday morning our daughter got up at around 7.30 AM and then we started from home (Baner, Pune) at 8.30 AM. We had planned to stop at Orchard cafe which is after Tamhini ghat; which as per google maps was around 2 hours drive from our home.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/3bWPa49kTeGooTD88

We reached orchard cafe at around 11 am and our daughter had just completed her nap. She was super energetic and we had idlis here. A decent place with clean washrooms but limited options for breakfast. I was not aware of any other better place on this route after Tamhini so had to stop there.





After having a good breakfast, we continued on our journey to Diveagar and reached Aarnas resort at around 2.30 PM. Had faced traffic jam of almost 45 mins near Mangaon after tamhini ghat.
Few pictures which I took where people just showed impatience and blocked the traffic coming from the opposite direction and in turn wasted everyone's time.









Resort was good, checked-in and then ordered some food and in the evening went to the beach. We enjoyed Diveagar beach and I personally feel it is one of the cleanest beaches in Konkan. It is also better than Alibaug and Kashid according to me.









Ordered Surmai thali for dinner and the food was really good.



While we were on our way to Diveagar, our friends with their 5 months old baby decided they would join us the next day at Harihareshwar.


DAY 2:

Next day we started at around 10 AM after breakfast and a stroll at the beach and went to Harihareshwar and met our friends there. Queue at the temple for parking was long and we waited for half an hour just to get the parking and then at the temple again the queue was long which could have taken at least one hour to take the darshan and hence we decided to skip the darshan as our daughter and our friend's baby would not remain calm for so long.

We went towards pradakshina marg and visited the Harihareshwar point. The stairs which leads us to the sea that we see in the pictures when we search Harihareshwar on google. I had some fascination for this place and wanted to go to Harihareshwar since 2015 but never got a chance to go there.



The stairs are broken and not well maintained; it was high tide so water level was almost above the rocks which are there towards the end of the stairs.







Clicked lot of pictures, appreciated the beauty of water hitting the rocks and spent good amount of time just looking at the sea.
Daughter wanted to go inside the waters but we obviously didn't let her do that.

We then went to Srivardhan and had planned our lunch at Tavsalkar which is quite famous for sea food but we reached there at around 3.30 pm and there was no one at the counter and it was very crowded, we decided not to wait and went to Prasad restaurant which was nearby and had good google reviews but didnt like the food there.
https://g.co/kgs/nCU2cXY

We did not go to Srivardhan beach as we were very tired and we had done almost a small trek at Harihareshwar to reach to the bottom of the stairs. We decided to go back to our resort, had booked dinner for 4 people at Suhas Bapat Khanawal already
https://g.co/kgs/EXQuMrn
Visited it at around 8.30 pm and had one of the best ukdiche modak and sol kadhi. Went back to resort and went to sleep.

DAY 3:

Next day morning, cleaned the car went to the beach, had a cup of tea.



Daughter woke up by then, went back to the resort and spent some time with daughter, had breakfast at the resort and started at around 10.30 am.

Went to our friends resort which was MTDC (Exotica). The resort was very good but the rooms are very very small. I would say the rooms are tiny. Washrooms are also cramped and I do not recommend this resort to anyone who wants a spacious room when they stay at some resort.

We started from there at around 12 pm and took the beach route and first decided to visit Aarvi beach. The beach route is very scenic and I recommend it to whoever is planning their visit to Diveagar.

While going towards Aarvi beach, we stopped at a small cliff where we did a trek and reached towards the bottom of the cliff where there was rocky terrain and waves were hitting the rocks. Clicked few pictures there, spent some time chatting and enjoying mighty waves hitting rocks and then started towards Aarvi beach.



We just saw Aarvi beach from the car and did not get down. Went towards Srivardhan and spent a good amount of time there at the beach. At Srivardhan, beach has boundary which is constructed and there are places created for people to sit under the shade. That felt nice but the beach itself was not clean and I did not like it.

We left from there at around 3 pm and then stopped at a market to take sukat, bombil and soda (these are some beach side specialities). They smell a lot, basically dried fish but I had to bring that for my father in law.

Bought some mangoes which were sold on the road at multiple points. Finally stopped at small tea stall at Tamhini and witnessed an accident where XUV700 had crashed into a standing Dzire and had incurred lot of damage. Both the parties were on call and it had just rained heavily.

Stopped at some point in Tamhini to take some pictures and enjoy nature.





Sparkling beauty shining bright at Tamhini:


Finally trip came to an end when we reached Rangala Punjab near the highway and had our dinner there and waved good bye to our friends.

If someone is planning a trip to a beach from Pune, I would surely recommend Diveagar for a weekend trip. The road is superb right from Pune to Diveagar.

Final trip reading stood at 433.5 kms :

[inder]

Lovely travelogue. I had been to Kokan in December and the weather was cool. How is the weather in May.

[ex-innova-guy]

Nice travelogue, and I totally agree with you on the road conditions on this stretch. Around 7 years ago, one would tread cautiously to go to Mangaon via Tamhini Ghat but rather play safe with the Expressway (Khalapur - Pali - Mangaon) route. The Tamhini ghat roads are just splendid now as they have added reflectors on most parts, so you will see plenty of bikers on Sunday.

Originally Posted by Draunzer21

Had faced traffic jam of almost 45 mins near Mangaon after tamhini ghat.

You can skip this traffic by using the Canal Road, which goes towards Mangaon Tehsil Office, and then turning onto Kacheri Road, which makes this stretch a breeze.

The stairs which leads us to the sea that we see in the pictures when we search Harihareshwar on google.

Had been to Harihareshwar and Shrivardhan in 2018. Here are some pictures.







Saw this Wald kit W204

[Draunzer21]

Originally Posted by inder

How is the weather in May.

It was very hot and super humid but bearable.

[Draunzer21]

Originally Posted by ex-innova-guy

You can skip this traffic by using the Canal Road, which goes towards Mangaon Tehsil Office, and then turning onto Kacheri Road, which makes this stretch a breeze.

Ohhh okay, I did not know this, would surely use this route from next time. Thank you

Originally Posted by ex-innova-guy

Had been to Harihareshwar and Shrivardhan in 2018. Here are some pictures.

Nice pictures. The stairs that are visible in your pictures of 2018 are no more existent, I failed to click its picture. The road from the top to the sea is very bad now and it is almost like a trek. A 10 year old kid fell down and got injured when we were there. They should work on maintaining the stairs as it is one of the finest spots in Konkan as per me.

[doga]

Nice pictures. I did Diveagar, Shrivardhan last year august and the diveagar beach was full of trash- looked like a dump. My wife mockingly told me- ' great plan of a perfect konkan getaway'

I asked the few tongawallas as to why so much trash and why it is not cleaned. Their answer disarmed me immediately- " Sahab ap Mumbai walon ka hi hai sab kachra, barish ke time pe idhar aa jata hai"
I gave an aplogetic look and quickly scooted from there. Thankfully shrivardhan beach was pristine and we enjoyed our time there. I have now made a point to only plan a konkan getaway which is sufficiently far from Mumbai, may be Ganpatipule and onwards!

[Draunzer21]

Originally Posted by doga

I did Diveagar, Shrivardhan last year august and the diveagar beach was full of trash- looked like a dump

Ahhh!! Could be because of rainy season, right now it is not that bad but Srivardhan was bad this time.

Originally Posted by doga

I have now made a point to only plan a konkan getaway which is sufficiently far from Mumbai, may be Ganpatipule and onwards!

Yeah, Ganpatipule is in a different league.