Wet, Wild ‘n’ Foggy ride


Where two is a Crowd

When: 24th June 2007
Route: Pune – Lonawala – Amby Valley – Kundlika Valley – Mulshi – Pune
Riders ‘n’ Rides: Nalin on Silver P180 and Me on Black Fiero
Distance: 178km

Time Taken: 9hrs (7:45am to 4:15pm)

It was a much awaited ride, one of the many rides I have planned for this rainy season. The ride started a bit late, at 7:45am, on a gloomy day with wet roads. After me and Nalin teamed up at Talegaon, the destination was Lonawala via the boring NH4 but the ride for a change was not so boring.

The wind was on higher side today, as we were nearing to Karla Caves, it started to rain heavily and crosswind increased their intensity. It was difficult to keep the bike moving straight and things went bad while overtaking trucks. Struggling with crosswind, as I would come next to truck, it would shield me from wind but the moment front end would come ahead of truck, wind would hit it with the rest of bike still behind truck, making the bike go into a big wobble, not a good feeling when you are travelling at speed close to 80 on wet roads.

At Lonawala after a small break we headed towards Amby Valley. Initially ride was nice but as we started the climb up Amby Valley, road vanished into thick fog and visiblity was reduced to 10-15feets with headlights on. I dropped the speed to 20-60 as I was not on a corner carving ride, nor was keen on getting my blood flowing faster in my veins (or will it be on road?).

We halted at Tiger point to munch on corn, it was too foggy to click any decent snap of the valley down. After a break we headed towards Amby Valley. As the fog reduced a little, we halted to put out camera’s to good use.


On the way to Amby Valley – Fog and Heavy Rains


On the way to Amby Valley – No speed limit for two-wheelers

Just as we closed on Amby Valley, we took the road off the main weekend tourist road and got onto this stretch of lesser travelled 40 odd km’s. Initially road was good but as we rode on, it started to get bad. We took our first of many halts at this bridge over a high flowing water stream.


On a bridge with high flowing water


Posing time

After riding some more distance we could see flooded fields and at many places water stream flowing over road as well. There we saw for first time another living organism, few big yellow colored crabs running across road. After crossing this water stream covered in fog, we decided to take another break.


Riding thru Fog and Water

Once we crossed over a hill we saw first signs of civilisation, a few houses. Rain has stopped but clouds were still hovering.


Foggy Break and the Road Ahead

Few km’s later, climate got better (lesser fog) to click pictures and for first time we saw some water streams coming down hills.


Somewhere on the way, Waterfall near & far

While on one side we had slightly clear hill, on the other side clouds were travelling at high speed covering-exposing hills at regular interval.


Fast moving clouds


Out in wild, High flying water

After riding on all kind of surface, tar road, broken road, road with slush (requiring to balance bike while crossing it), we reached a point where we were seeing weekend tourists in numbers. Later I realised that we are nearing the end of ride as we were closing on to Kundlika Valley.


On the way to Kundlika Valley, The Valley

After we started from Kundlika Valley, we were soon on Mulshi road and we were plugged back into civilisation (or shall I say uncivilised civilisation?). Weekend tourists were travelling on road as if they own it. Its a free country, so I go no problems with that but what I have problem is that when it start to affect me, by endangering my life.

We stopped at a hotel which on a normal day will be having staff out numbering customers but today there was a queue of customers. So we moved ahead for another hotel. After a nice lunch we rode back to Pune which was, like most of ride’s ending, a boring (no rains and drying roads) and frustrating (senseless riding/driving by morons on/behind wheels) experience.

20 thoughts on “Wet, Wild ‘n’ Foggy ride”

  1. Boy… One day I am going to ride all the way to pune for this….these are like our chikmanglur terrain, albeit with waterfalls…..
    gotta do this….gotta do this….gotta do this….gotta do this….gotta do this….

  2. Great pics/ write up Nav. Ride on water stream looks great.

    PS: Why u feel very disheartened while coming back from any ride of urs ??

  3. Thanks guys.

    @Prabul: Come over before rains go away 🙂
    @Ashish: What else do one can feel when he is moving into hell from heaven? 😉

  4. You did ur dream ride finally….i wud have luv to come…maybe its time to get button tyres for the rains!!!

  5. @Harshad: Lets ride 🙂

    @Vibhu: Come back to home 😉

    @Rahul: This was just one of the rides, will keep you informed of the future rides 🙂

  6. What an amazing wet n wild ride! All the 100 waterfalls in full flow!

    Beautiful pics Nav

    Nandu n Medini

  7. awesome stuff… man.. this makes me miss india so much rite now…. damn!

    ride on buddy.. and do some more wet n wild rides like this.. have funnn…

    Akhil

  8. good stuff nav, keep it up. do post up when you’re going to hit the road again, so we can join in.

  9. Thanks Captain, Akhil, Vamsi and Joshua.

    @Akhil: More wet rides depend on weather gods, if they are happy with us or not 🙂

    @Joshua: Sure, will keep you in loop about the future rides.

  10. Wow pics Nav!

    You guys sure had a super duper ride. I remember shooting in the Aamby Valley last monsoon. It was great fun! We were driving two San Storm convertibles, driving in and out of the clouds. Man! That place sure is nice during the rains!

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