[Draunzer21]

Hello fellow BHPians,

I am a beach person and am always seeking opportunities to take my car and go to a nearby beach. During Diwali I went to South Goa and just last week I visited the longest beach in Maharashtra - Guhagar.

Planning:
I watched several YouTube videos on Guhagar especially to cover homestays, food options and road conditions if we travel from Pune. After lots of research, we decided we would go there for 2 nights and 3 days and cover lighthouse, Velneshwar beach, Bamanghal and some temples. As we are a family of 3 and we were going to travel with a 2 year old, we decided we will leave early and go non-stop to Guhagar. We have inflatable bed which we generally use for any travel which is more than 2 hours. Our daughter takes a quick nap every time we travel + she also has motion sickness so sleeping helps her to avoid that.

Preparation:
As my car is now 8 years old, it had its yearly servicing due and I went to Sumankirti cars Pune and got my car serviced. Wheel alignment and all was done just to make sure there are no surprises during the trip. The day before I went and filled petrol and checked the air pressure. Inflated the bed and did all the packing and kept bags in the car's trunk. Food items were packed but not kept in the car the day before. Car was ready, bags packed, offline maps downloaded and we were all set.

Journey and Route details:
My wife and I woke up at around 5 am and got ready but our 2 year old got up at around 7.15 AM IST. We started from home at 7.20 AM IST, took Tamhini ghat route and passed Orchard cafe at around 9 AM IST. Our daughter faced motion sickness and we had to stop to clean her up and took a quick break.

At around 9.55 AM, we joined NH66. There was a diversion right after we started on NH66 and the road till Guhagar had atleast 4-5 diversions with broken roads/patches. Apart from those 4-5 patches, the other parts were really good and we left NH66 at around 12 PM and reached our homestay at Guhagar at around 12.45 PM.
Total travel time : 5 hours 25 minutes
Stops : 3 to 4 stops each of around 5-10 mins mostly for bio break or for my daughter's motion sickness
Police checking : There were bunch of policemen at 2 locations on NH66 but they did not stop us.
Tunnel : There was a long tunnel on the NH66, I am not sure about it's name but it was very long.

Trip meter set to 0 before the start of trip.


Somewhere on NH66:


Our homestay was right on the beach, we went to nearby khanaval (place which serves homecooked food) and I had fish thali while my wife had veg thali.

Veg thali pic:


After lunch, we went to our room and took some rest and the evening was spent enjoying at the beach. I had thought Diveagar and Tarkarli are cleaner beaches but Guhagar beats Tarkarli as well according to me. For dinner we went to Suruchi restaurant which is quite famous. We tried puri bhaji, puri shrikhand and veg thali there, puri bhaji was good and veg thali was just okay.

Came back and then decided to have the next day breakfast at the homestay itself. We ordered Amboli, Upma and Bread Omelette. Next day we went to the beach in the morning and then headed towards the breakfast area. The breakfast was mouth watering and we enjoyed the food. We also visited Musale restaurant to try kothimbir vadi and ghavan but we did not like both the dishes.

Ghavan:


Kothimbir vadi:


After breakfast we left towards Bamanghal. The road from Guhagar to Velneshwar is very scenic and we enjoyed the journey a lot. We reached Bamanghal just when high tides were about to start, we saw water splashing on the rocks, enjoyed the view, clicked some pictures and then went to Hedavi beach, from there to Velneshwar beach and then to couple of temples nearby.
Could not take picture of water splashing at Bamanghal neither could I click the creek as my wife asked me not to go near it.




At around 3 pm we started from Velneshwar and went to Talkeshwar light house. Reached light house at 5 pm and were out within half an hour. Even though it was Sunday, there was no rush at all.

Pics from lighthouse:






Headed towards homestay and then after some tea and coffee, went to the beach and enjoyed the sunset at Guhagar beach.

Next day - enjoyed breakfast at the home stay only. This time we had also ordered modak so enjoyed those as well.

Modak:



Thalipeeth:


Went to nearby shops and bought some Kokani food items, came back and packed our bags and then checked out of the homestay. Visited couple of temples and then started our return journey at around 12 pm.

While returning, took 1 hour to reach NH66, another 1 hour 40 mins to reach Mangaon, around 4.20 pm stopped in Tamhini ghat for tea.

Incident with Seltos:
There was a Pune passing Seltos which was very new and looked like the driver was also new but no L mark on the car. He was driving in the middle of the road in Tamhini ghat. It was difficult to overtake him and no one was able to overtake him and there were atleast 5-6 cars following him and trying to overtake. Every time a car came from opposite side, this guy used to brake and used to almost reduce cars speed to 10-15 kms/hr even on straight road. Everyone following him was frustrated and honking continuously but he did not care. Finally there were only 2 cars left behind him and I was one of them. The other car was Octavia and he was trying to overtake since 15 mins or so. Finally on a turn he lost patience and tried to overtake when 2 cars came from opposite side and everyone braked. The car from opposite side was XL6 which almost went below the road into the bushes but Octavia guy did not wait and just overtook Seltos and left. This was scary and I continued following Seltos for another 5 mins before I honked 4-5 times and then he gave me side and I overtook him. I could have witnessed an accident that day in Tamhini for sure. Last time I was in Tamhini, XUV700 had rammed a Swift Dzire.

5.55 pm reached Baner, Pune.
Total Travel time : 5 hours 55 minutes
Stops : 2-3 stops for small purchases and tea

Road condition - There were speed breakers on highway and looked like the engineer who designed the turns in Bhoste ghat knew that is accident prone so I saw some safety measures taken on turns as shown in below image.






The road condition while returning was also good with around 5-6 patches which were filled with potholes.
Police checking - no

Total distance covered was close to 625 kms. Car gave mileage of around 19 kms/ltr and performed flawlessly.
Went above 100 km/hr only few times in this 625 kms trip. Tried to drive with 80-90 kms/hr constantly.

Recommendations:
If anyone is planning to visit Guhagar or Chiplun, I would surely recommend Tamhini ghat route.
I would also recommend Guhagar beach as a must visit place for people who like to spend time on beach with family or friends.
There are almost 0 restaurants on the NH66 patch towards chiplun so please carry some snacks and water with you in the car.
There are pretty good homestays in Guhagar, we stayed at Osari and opted for sea-side rooms.

Some pics from Guhagar Beach: (Clicked using mobile Camera so clarity is not that great)

[Aditya]

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

[Axe77]

Thank you for sharing the lovely travelogue. For sheer simplicity and pure beauty the Konkan coastline indeed offers a wonderful experience. The food pics are so typical of this entire belt and looks really good.

I hope I can do another trip along the coast sometime this year or next. A wide variety of places to explore all along Konkan right up to Goa and even beyond on the KA side.

[Neeraj1903]

I visited Guhagar on 13th and 14th Jan. It is my deity. I went there by road after 3 years (was in Mumbai earlier for sometime and used Konkan Railway) and was shocked pleasantly to see the NH66.

The beach is definitely serene and also one of the cleanest and safest in India.

[jetsetgo08]

Beautiful pics. Wanted to visit Guhagar but could not. Was on a solo konkan road trip a week ago, had ridden along the coast from Ganapatipule to Arambol. While I was in Ganapatipule, I realized that it will take me another trip to explore Guhagar and the upper konkan coast all the way up to Alibaug. And yes, looks like ukadiche modak and thalipeeth are common across till Ratnagiri district.

There are many small beautiful fishing villages all along the coast. Beautiful scenes for photography, especially on bright sunny days.

[SidTheChamp]

Thanks for sharing this. I have visited many beaches between Mumbai and Tarkarli but not yet Guhagarh.
How is the sea. Is it peaceful sea or a more turbulent one like Kashid or Ganpatipule beach

[Draunzer21]

Originally Posted by SidTheChamp

How is the sea. Is it peaceful sea or a more turbulent one like Kashid or Ganpatipule beach

The sea is very peaceful. Very good for family and kids to enjoy at the beach, according to me.