Continued from CKRT: Day 01 - Murud Janjira to Shrivardhan
Day 02: Sunday, 29-April-2012
Route: Shrivardhan -> Harihareshwar -> Bagmandala (jetty) -> Veshwi (jetty) -> Bankot -> Velas -> Bankot -> Kelashi -> Anjarle
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We got up quite early in the morning and went back towards Diveagar looking for Aaravi beach. We had loved the views a day back on our way from Diveagar to Shrivardhan, and had decided to check it out again in the morning.
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The beach and the route was fabulous as expected. It's a complete sea-side drive of almost 5km or so, and some of it takes you through a ghat, with sea on one side and the mountain on the other. Rare. Besides, to a large extent the Aaravi beach is spread along the route. It's definitely one of the longest beaches I have seen till date. It's lovely, to say the least.
Sea-side Drive along the Aaravi Beach (as recorded by Pravya)
Harihareshwar
We got back to our room, and in an hour after having breakfast, we checked out and left for Harihareshwar. The road was excellent. Drive was fantastic. It was breezy all along and as a result, not even a trace of discomfort.
The Harihareshwar temple and surrounding area is being renovated. It was in an ugly state when we got there - with all the construction material lying around and poking from here and there.
We had shared some majestic moments during our school day picnic, around 15 years back, in Harihareshwar. All those golden moments came rushing back at the sight of the beach and the pass (खिंड), from where you get down onto the porous rocks for अर्ध-प्रदक्षिणा. The sea was getting rough due to high-tide timing, and we had a hell of a time getting drenched with the powerful tides breaking on the rocks. Sometimes, we were busy filling in our camera frames with the rocks, and suddenly a powerful wave would break on the rocks behind us with a loud BOOM!, scaring us out of our wits.
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Apart from unusual rocky surface and rough sea, another attraction of the place was a sea-eagle that was hovering above us. I had even caught him diving head-first towards the sea with his wings curved in, but unfortunately, due to the excitement of not losing the moment, I couldn't get the lens to focus on the bird, and lost the valuable shot. On a different note, I have observed many a times that, though this Tamron 70-300 VC USD is tack sharp when it focuses well, 'focussing well' itself is its Achilles heel! Many a times I have lost some moments because the lens couldn't get a correct focus. Guess I will probably need to find a different technique to still make this lens work, though.
Seeing the eagle dive head-first, giving it up at the last moment, and then soar back again in the skies was a spectacular sight. Few other beautiful and well-dressed birds were also there, but were accompanied by their parents. So stealing glances and checking them out time and again, was all we could manage.
The Fall at Veshvi
We had our lunch at one of the houses near the temple, and left for Bagamandala jetty. To our pleasant surprise, the launch was docking just as we arrived at the jetty. This launch was capable of carrying not only small cars, but even large heavy vehicles like buses. One thing I observed was, for those vehicles having lesser ground clearance, loading them on the launch was a constant struggle against brushing the under-chassis or rear bumper to the ground, due to a stiff variation in gradient where the launch had docked.
There was a long queue of 4-wheelers, but bikes could fit in anywhere. Result? We hopped on right away, while those cars which had arrived way earlier than us, kept waiting for their turn.
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It was a swift 10-20 mins journey to Veshvi from Bagmandala. After unloading our bike, we set out for Bankot.
Veshvi is a small and a very beautiful jungle-town. Coming up from the jetty and going towards Veshvi, the setting is so surreal, that it almost feels like you are entering some kind of a fancy world of yore. There is no tar road up though, and it's a killer killer gradient. To make the matter worse, there are moon-size craters on the road. So the inevitable happened. I was a little careless , still taking in the surroundings, while we were crawling up at a snail's pace. The gradient suddenly increased, and due to all our weight and luggage, I sensed the bike would knock and I tried to change the gear from 2nd to 1st. I should have done that quite earlier. Rather than going from 2nd to 1st, it changed to neutral, and on a steep gradient, with almost no momentum to spare, you dont get more than a split second to change to a correct gear. That's a strict timeline, and if you fail, you start a backward journey in no time. So did we. Gravity did its job, and we started skidding backwards, in reverse, not being able to see - where! A person who was getting down towards the jetty, panicked more than we did. But fortunately, we docked on the roadside, after about 10-15 seconds of backward skidding anxiety. A soft fall was all we had, after loosing balance.
Bankot and Velas
As with all falls, the bike took around 5-10mins before it started again. Once it did, we started towards Bankot. The gradients were there to stay. The route towards Bankot was again up a very steep hill. Killer gradient. Many a time, while trying to speed the bike up, I had noticed that on feeding in power, the front wheel would lift up in the air! It was scary. So I stopped rushing things. This time if we were to start backwards, we would go hurtling down. So it was not worth the risk. I kept the pace just enough to make sure all the wheels are glued to the ground - all the time, though that meant we were not going faster than may be 5-10kmph!
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Made it to the top, roamed around the Bankot fort, which is as big as a car showroom. That's it. It's more of a watch tower than a fort. It was probably used just to keep watch on the creek, rather than for some elaborate purpose - like having strategic advantage in fighting. The views were amazing though, and we got busy with our cameras again.
From Bankot, we left for Velas beach, in search of the endangered sea-turtles breeding ground. The drive was again very scenic, sea-side route with a couple of sae-eagles hovering quite low on the water.
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Eventually we made it to the Velas beach after asking directions couple of times. To our dismay, the sea-turltles festival was already over, and we were 15 days too late.
Anjarle
We started back towards Bankot. Only later did we come to know that there is a new route opened from Velas to Kelshi.
When going towards Mandangad, there were two routes that could be taken. One would go via Veshvi - the low route. While the other would go via Bankot - the top route. The top route goes staying on the top of the huge ridge, overlooking the large creek all the time. We were told the top route had better surface, and hence was preferable. So off we went via this top route, which turned out to be very scenic as well, due to its height.
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| Top of the ridge -overlooking the wide creek |
After blitzing through the relatively good road, we finally made it to Kelshi, and then on to Anjarle. Staying in Anjarle turned out to be a costly affaire with room rents hovering around a thousand bucks mark. What we had admired as a sleepy Konkani town, around 3-4 years back, had turned into a tourist hotspot.
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| There was this striking bullock-cart on the way to temple |
We roamed around the town, till there was some light left, and by the time we got back to the room, I was having a mild migrain. So I skipped dinner and went to sleep right away after taking a shower.
Next: CKRT: Day 03 - Anjarle to Guhagar
Next: CKRT: Day 03 - Anjarle to Guhagar
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