Monsoon has started and this is the best time to explore places around Pune. Mountains, Clouds, Ghats, Green landscape make this place heavenly.
As the weather forecast said it would be Thunderstorm on Saturday, we decided to take one of the most beautiful route, i.e. Pune(home)-Mulshi-Tamhini-Mangoan-Poladpur-Mahabaleshwar-Wai-Pune(Home Run via NH4)
So the Ride started at 0620hrs from Chandni Chowk, which is the common meeting point for our regular rides. The Actual time to start was 0600hrs, but i was late, that gave others a change to have coffee at CCD near by :p.
Start Point Pic.
(Clicked from my mobile phone, so please mind the qaulity)
First stop was somewhere at the Tamini Ghat, where the view was amazing. You could see clouds below you viewing from the edge of the cliff.
Selfie Courtesy @Aurobindo , Not to mention he recently got his selfie stick and suddenly the photographer in him came to live ;)
Road Condition till Tamhini was mixed some bad patches, some really good section, winding roads with 3 hairpin turn. Overall a very good scenery road.
Next stop was Breakfast at orchard cafe at Tamhini, it was around 0900hrs and we all where hungry :beguiled:
This was the time when Kochu took out his weapon (Canon DSLR), shoot some really good portraits :D
After the Breakfast we resume our ride, good road from orchard cafe till Mangoan. we faced little traffic at Mangoan junction but i was not worth mentioning.
NH17 was fun to ride on as usual :cool:. Road condition was super, cruising at triple digit speed felt like nothing.
There was a point, where a Cow came in front of me from nowhere, luckily she didn't stop in the middle of the road and i had enough distance to slow down safely.
This high speed cruising ended up in ghats in Poladpur, where i was left behind with Auro & Sandeep. While others went ahead we where enjoying the view
After few clicks, we resumed our ride and just after few kms, we found others at a yet another beautiful spot. And again Photo shoot started :p
And the Ride resumed again, Poladpur was fun and the nightmare stared as soon as we entered Mahabaleshwar. Horrible traffic at market, it took me around 30mins to just cross that traffic. Once crossed, things started getting better but once again at Venna Lake it was like nightmare part-2 :p. After over coming this 2nd traffic, my wrist started paining like hell. Once i thought of stopping, but i have to move on i was left behind and everyone were far ahead of me. I decided to keep moving slowly well within my comfort zone. After covering some good distance i saw Viper & Aman standing at entrance of a place called Table Top, i guess they were waiting for me. If they were not there i would have continued riding assuming that they was still far ahead of me.
So at the Table Top, the photo shoot started again. Table Top near Mahabaleshwar is really a amazing place. It's a flat land with cliff on one side, the view which one get there is truly unforgettable. Throughout the ride we where excepting rain as the forecast said Thunderstorm, but there were to traces of rain. We lined up our bike, relaxed and enjoyed the view for some time. Aman, who came all the way from Navi Mumbai, was getting late so he left after we took some group photos followed by Mr. & Mrs Viper who left few mins later.
This is not very often that such a large no. of people turn up for rides, so Group Photo to Banta hai :D
We spend very good amount of quality time there. As soon as saw rain coming we started packing and gearing up and started riding. Well not before clicking photos ;)
And the longest part of the ride begin-home run. But still it wan't the time to say good bye to each other, we stopped at Wai for small refreshment. And the finally NH4 Home run Began.
Over all had a great time riding with friends in such a great weather and in such a beautiful places. Looking forward to more such rides.
Photo Courtesy: Auro, Vivek, Shubham & Me
Riders:
1 Aniruddha +1
2 Vivek +1
3 Prasad
4 Sandeep
5 Parag
6 Auro
7 Shubham
8 Amogh
9 Aman