Bangalore to Gokarna via Sirsi: Route taken & overall road condition

The best part was the road from Honnavara to Sagara via Jog Falls.

BHPian Stryker recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Returned from a weekend trip to Gokarna from Bengaluru. Jotting down the route details here.

We took the Bengaluru - Chitradurga - Haveri - Sirsi - Devimane - Gokarna route for the onward journey, as we wanted to visit the famous Marikamba Devi Temple in Sirsi.

Traffic upto Sira is a major pain, with too many heavy vehicles hogging the road. After that AH47 all the way to Haveri is bliss. Especially the section after Chitradurga, dead straight roads, visibility for kilometers ahead, you can maintain high speeds. Once you turn off the highway, NH766E to Sirsi is good too, with a few kilometers of bad patches midway. Sirsi to Devimane is a reasonable section and after Devimane in the beautiful Western Ghats is a wide concrete white top road, but there are innumerable small deviations where they are constructing minor bridges or uncompleted patches. This increases overall time and makes driving a chore. After you get down from the ghats, you join NH66 for a few kilometers before the turn off to Gokarna.

For the return journey, we decided to take the Gokarna - Kumta - Honnavara - Sagara - Shikaripura - Ranebennur - Chitradurga - Bengaluru, although it was longer by nearly 80 kms. Best decision, as it turned out. NH66 from Gokarna to Honnavara is excellent, with some bumpy sections around Kumta. Otherwise it is four lane all the way. The best part was the road from Honnavara to Sagara via Jog Falls. The climb up the Western Ghats and the journey down is just mind blowingly lovely and the road is new and perfectly maintained all the way, with zero bad patches. And the twisties, oh the twisties!! Sagara to Shikaripura is also butter smooth and very wide, you can cover the distance in no time. From there to Ranebennur is so-so, but nothing to slow you down. After that we are back on AH47. As usual, from Sira it is painful all the way back home!

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