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4,000 km road trip to see Statue of Unity in our Hyundai Exter

2nd September 2024, 18:29 by Kanad Kalasur

As we had bought the Exter 8 months back it hadn’t been driven much and didn’t have a chance to go on a long road trip.

BHPian knbalki recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Sardar Vallabhai Patel being called the iron man of India is one of the notable people in the Indian history. His contribution to national integration in the newly independent India was remarkable and this earned him the name “The Iron man of India”. The statue of unity was a tribute to sir sardar Vallabhai Patel. Statue of unity, the reason they named it the statue of unity is to honor Vallabhai Patel as he had contributed and fought for the unification of the nation.

Situated in the banks of Narmada, facing the sardar Sarovar dam, is a magnificent sky-scraping statue that is the largest in the world. Every Indian citizen should be visiting this monument and promoting it as this is a national wealth that has been constructed. So, this idea of the Statue was struck in us and it was decided that we had to visit it. As we had bought the Exter 8 months back it hadn’t been driven much and didn’t have a chance to go on a long road trip. So, the Exter being a new car and having its first service done the car was ready to go any day.

The only thing hindering was the dates and monsoon, dates being decided and leave being taken, monsoon was the one to be handled. As we were a pack of 4 and 3 being able to drive, we were ready to chase the monsoon. We called the road trip “Chasing Monsoon” as we were planning to actually chase but irony being that we were chased away by monsoon in every destination that we went. Gujarat being far from our place that we stay (Nileshwar, Kerala) we thought of adding places nearby to cover the state. Even though we weren’t able to cover the state as a whole we tried to include maximum places nearby.

So, the plan was made, dates were decided, hotels weren’t booked as we thought of doing it on the go.

The final plan was to cover;

Statue of unity
Dwarkadish temple
Porbandar
Somnath temple

As this was the plan now only thing pending was to fix the route there were three routes that were available in google maps, two going through Navi Mumbai and another going through Nashik. We planned to go through the Navi Mumbai route because of the less distance and as this was a known route when discussed with friends and family. But to reach Navi Mumbai we had two options

Gokarna-Yellapur-Belgavi-Kolhapur-Satara-Pune
Gokarna-Karwar-Canacona-Madgaon-Panaji-sawantwadi-rajapur-ratnagiri-chiplun-khed-pen-lonavala

These were the two routes that we had and thought of driving till Gokarna, then decide between roads. Staying near to the coast we always had the fantasy of going through the Konkan coast. We were inclined to that route just because of the scenery but we weren’t aware of the road conditions. Google maps always showed us the first route.

Dates we decided were (23/06-30/06) 7 days altogether and a total of 4000 – 4200kms (dates were not much flexible but we always had room for an extra day). The day before that is Saturday (22 June), filled up the car and gave him a wash, filled up the windshield washer tank, checked all the levels just to make sure everything is right. We always have a tubeless tyre puncture kit, tyre inflator pump, and other essentials in the car.

Finally, the day had come. We started at 6:15am. Roads were not that good until Mangalore as the new highway work was going on and due to the same, we were facing too many diversions. Around 830 845 we took our breakfast break. Started again through the beautiful scenic roads of Mangalore through the coast. If someone is going through this road it’s a must to stop near Maravanthe beach. The road is built right next to the beach. Just a walk and you are in the sea. Murdeshwar shiv temple is also a very good spot to visit while travelling through this coast, we could not as we were short of time.

Continued our journey again and stopped near Karwar for lunch. We wouldn’t recommend the hotel to anyone (new Udupi café). Right after this we reached Gokarna, we decided to go through the coastal route that is the second route, through which we thought we would get to see Goan culture a bit. Roads are narrow and congested once you cross Madgaon. About the monsoon season we were getting rains here and there but after goa we started to receive good amount of rain. Just after Panaji as we got into Maharashtra roads were good till Atal Setu bridge. After that National Highway 66 roads were worse and there were potholes big enough for the car’s tire to get stuck in. We planned to stay in Chiplun and booked a good decent stay there. But the drive till Chiplun was too tedious and tiring. No proper roads, heavy rains, no light, unpredictable potholes often and the average speed was very less being 20-25km/h. Due to this it took 3 to 4 hours to cover just 150kms.

Stay at Chiplun: Hotel Visava

Highly recommended, the roads to reach the stay were narrow and confusing, but it was a comfortable place even though the rooms were very small. As we were a family of 4, we had to take up two rooms. We reached the stay at around 9:30 PM.

Day 1 stats: