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Driving on the Samruddhi Expressway in my Audi S5: Road trip experience

21st February 2023, 19:10 by Rahul Nagaraj

Covered around 2k kms in 4 days, travelled to places which were not on our radar even 24 hours before the trip.

BHPian animeshc recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Which of the following reasons could possibly persuade one to change their impromptu trip to Andaman and do a road trip to Samruddhi Expressway instead?

You are a driving enthusiast and have always been meaning to try out the expressway.
An awesome travelogue by Dr AD inspired you to do so, immediately without further ado.
Your wife ‘politely’ reminds you that you bought a freaking expensive toy and better use it than to fly anywhere.

The correct answer is all of the above and well, who cares for the reason as long as the end result is an amazing road trip? So this is the story of a freakishly impromptu trip with the sole goal of smoking some tarmac.

Now to the details, every good story needs a solid back story so here are some insights into how it all came together.

The proposal!

With us hopping almost every alternate weekend between Jaipur and Hyderabad to make full use of WFH, there is no dearth of travel in our lives. My wise half wanted to get a breather during the weekend of 26th Jan but to my frivolous mind of mine, spending 4 days without doing anything felt criminal.

So on the flight back from Jaipur on the 22nd of Jan, I pitched the idea. The cordial conversation went something like this:

Me, the Boss (with scepticism): “Let's go somewhere”
She, the Real boss (with an expression of awe at my sheer audacity): “Didn’t we decide to take a break”
Boss: “We will go somewhere and just chill, let's go to Kashmir and just enjoy the snow at Gulmarg”
Real boss (with a seeming sense of consideration of the idea): “Isn’t 4 days too short to cover Kashmir”
Boss (sensing victory): “No no, I have everything sorted”.
Real boss with the KO punch: “All my winter clothes are at Jaipur, should we re-buy everything now”
Now with the possibility of a winter destination out, I decided to turn my focus to some exotic beaches.
Boss: “Let's go to Sri Lanka, straight to Galle and then just relax at the Beach”
Real boss (another KO): “My passport is also in Jaipur”

So now I had to narrow down to non-winter destinations within India but given the long weekend, most of the popular places would be overcrowded so I had to come up with something slightly more niche and less crowded.

The research over the next 3 days evolved as follows:

Monday (3 days before the trip): Let’s try out Lakshadweep! After contacting some travel agency found out that due to permits etc needed for the trip, it wasn’t feasible.
Tuesday (2 days before the trip): Why not Andaman? Hotels were available at the Radhanagar beach in Havelock Island, so too were direct flights from Hyderabad. This feels like destiny, or so I thought. My better half then reminded me of the vow that I took while buying our S5 that we will utilise to the hilt. I was politely told that if I was volatile enough to not sit and utilise our house in Hyderabad, I should at least utilise the damn car. Suggestion taken!
Wednesday(1 day before the trip): Let's go to Mahabalipuram, some friends had recommended it as a good drive from Hyderabad and would be less crowded than Pondicherry. Didn’t find too many stay options except the Radisson, but by the time we discussed and decided to book, it was gone too :(.

Now with all hopes lost, I was going through the monotony of office life but as Mr Shahrukh Khan said that if ain’t a happy ending, “picture abhi back hai mere dost”

Suddenly the travelogue of Dr AD popped up as a shining ray of light. Samruddhi expressway! Why not try it out?

Over the next few hours, I chalked out an itinerary, found some good places to stay along the way, got approval for the idea from ‘you know who’ and by 4 pm on Wednesday, we were set and the bookings were finalised.

The itinerary looked as follows:

Hyderabad - Nagpur (night halt) - Shirdi - Nashik (night halt)?

Yes, the question mark is intentional. We didn’t know our return plan, whether we would return via Nagpur or Aurangabad, where we would take a night halt etc. and decided to figure it out on the go.

The final route looked like this:

The D day (Hyd -> Nagpur)

On the morning of the 26th, by 6:30 am we started our journey, infused with patriotism pouring through the radio on the occasion of Republic Day.

A scenic sunrise sets the mood right for a long trip @Hyd ORR

Stopped at a Bandi for some true Hyderabadi breakfast.

The Hyderabad - Nagpur highway is a tried and tested road that is good for the most part. Past the initial traffic till Medak and nearby towns, the roads cleared up and Lucifer could stretch his logs and open up his vocals.

Some pics along the way

After entering Maharashtra, the roads worsened slightly but the journey was pretty much a breeze except for the last part. The resort we had booked was about 50 kms before Nagpur, close to the Karhandla sanctuary. We took a detour from the Nh44 at ButiBori and then what followed was a really horrendous patch with so many potholes that at one point, I suggested going back and directly taking the Samruddhi expressway and halting somewhere after that but I was coerced out of any more crazy impromptu ideas. Thankfully Lucifer navigated the bad roads without many hiccups (albeit at a very very slow place where even cyclists overtook us comfortably) except for one really bad speed breaker where it bottomed out and the grazing sound of metal against the road sent a chill down our spine. I stopped to check if something was leaking but thankfully no visible damage was there.

We finally reached the resort at around 2:30 pm and after a quick lunch, straight away headed for a safari (and if you are now wondering how come a trip that initially started with the idea of a leisure trip became so hectic, well you are not alone, so were we!)

Lucifer catching up on some afternoon siesta

The safari turned out to be a rather dull affair and we didn’t spot anything worth mentioning.

Can you spot a big cat here? Don't worry, neither could we.

The resort we stayed at was The Green Heaven Resort. It was a rather nice property and after returning, we spent lazing around the resort, dipping our feet in the pool and enjoying a rather lavish spread of evening snacks and dinner.

Summary of Day 1

Day 2 (Nagpur - Nashik)

We were ready by 6 am and it was pitch dark, the resort staff was nowhere to be seen, we had to find and wake up the guard to open the main gate.

The road from the resort to the Samruddhi expressway was through the Outer Ring Road of Nagpur and the broad smooth roads were the ideal morning caffeine we needed.

Good morning Nagpur!

Around 7:15 am, we were at the flag-off point of the Samruddhi expressway. This was the moment we had been waiting for and the reason we took up this 2k km road trip!

For the initial 15-20 mins on the expressway, I had to recalibrate my senses to not worry about sudden potholes or incoming traffic on the wrong side and make myself believe that this indeed is a marvel of a road. After that, it was an exhilarating drive and then I had to keep reminding my senses that this wasn’t the BIC I was driving on.

One could argue that driving on such a long open stretch can be boring, but not if you have a V6 engine and powerful exhaust to keep you engaged. Enough has already been said about the expressway so won’t go too much into the details. The visibility is great, the lanes and exits are well marked, not too many fuel stops along the way (hardly 2 or 3 over a stretch of 515 kms), if only the road could have been smoother.

Here are a couple of videos along the way: Video 1 & Video 2

Even if you go at the speed limit, you would cover the distance of 515 kms in 4 hrs and a few mins. I may have breached it slightly and ended up covering 515 kms in a shade under 4 hours. A few years ago, believing that something like this would be possible on Indian roads was as laughable as believing that there won’t be a thread around “Bangalore traffic rant” on team bhp one day (Yes I am throwing a challenge at you universe, please prove me wrong).

After exiting the highway at Shirdi, we decided to go directly to our resort in Nashik and postpone the Shirdi Sai Baba temple visit for the return journey.

Ironically enough, there are huge craters on the roads as soon as you take the exit from the expressway to remind you of the harsh realities of the world and give you an opportunity to recalibrate yourself again. It was a rather boring drive thereafter, especially after the adrenaline rush we had experienced. Parts of the Shirdi-Nashik patch are good, parts are in construction and parts are heavily crowded.

We stopped along the way to recharge ourselves with some utterly delicious Misal Pav.

We reached our resort around 2 and instantly fell in love with the staff when they offered a free wash of the car

It was a wellness resort, designed to take your mind away from the hustle and bustle of life and take a pause. They have yoga and meditation sessions, simple and tasty food aka Satvik food (interestingly no milk-based beverages, so had wheat coffee and Kadha!) and their kitchen closes by 9:30 at night. We spent the afternoon catching up on some well-deserved sleep and walking around the resort. Had a good chat with the resort manager who turned out to be a driving enthusiast himself with multiple Delhi-Kerala road trips under his belt. He was a bit amazed to see that we had driven all the way from Hyderabad.