Koyna dam

Agenda
Destination	Koyna dam
Distance	655 kms
Date	10-Nov-2017 Friday Eve to 12-Nov-2017
Destination briefing	The Koyna Dam is one of the largest dams in Maharashtra, India. It is a rubble-concrete dam constructed on Koyna River which rises in Mahabaleshwar, a hillstation in Sahyadri ranges. It is located in Koyna Nagar, Satara district, nestled in the Western Ghats on the state highway between Chiplun and Karad.
Famous for	Koyna dam, landscapes

Participants : 

Lead : David & Jaipal

Tail :   Ravindra Parcha

Marshal : Ravindra Parcha

Photographer : Vishal, Rahul Patil, Ravindra Parcha

Voluntary Riders : Aadik, Rahul, Akshay,  Aniket
Bikes : Suzuki Inazuma 250, Pulsar 220F, Hornet, Gixxer, Unicorn 160, FZS

Hello to everyone, hope you all are doing good. Today I am gonna share our one more riding stories with you all. This time we planned to ride to Koyna dam. Winter is the right time to visit that place. Climate looks very pleasant during this time. Let's start the story.

Planning- We all were discussing our next destination since our last south India ride. We thought of Kaas pathar, Koyna dam, Nashik and many more but finally chose koyna dam as our November ride destination. Last long ride we did in September so it was 2 months we haven't gone for any ride. David suggested us place to stay in Koyna dam as he has been there numerous time. We decided to leave on Friday night(10-Nov-2017). Plan was to leave after office hour, ride whole night and reach the spot in the early morning, followed by breakfast, sleep and visiting places.

Day 1- We planned to meet 10:30 PM in the night at McD kalamboli. but we are Indians, no one came on time. David and Jaipal were the first to reach meeting point and we others were late comers. I was on time and waiting for Rahul Patil in Turbhe on Sion-Panvel road, but he didn't even leave from his home and I was thinking he was on the way as per his updates. Har ek dost kamina hota h.. I realized it. I was waiting for Rahul Patil, by the time Vishal, Akshay, Aniket, Rahul saw me waiting and stopped. I am not duplicating name Rahul, we actually have two Rahul in our group. aisa lagta hai Kuchh kuchh hota h k baad se maa baap ne bachho ka naam Rahul rakhna start kar diya. There are so many Rahul. I was waiting there since 10:00 PM, Rahul Patil came by 10:45 PM. We met at McD kalamboli. We greeted each other, fueled up our tanks and started ride from there and met Aadik in Panvel. It was already 11:30 PM. We stopped at “Welcome Restaurant” in Panvel. David & Jaipal wanted to have some light food. They were having dinner while others were clicking pictures, cracking jokes. It was 12:00 AM in the night we were ready to leave.

Day 2- We were riding bit slow as there were lot of trucks and almost everyone was using high beam (high beam makes you blind for sometime) and road was two way as well. Once we touched Khopoli road we started revving hard, we were already late so we were riding in good speed ( not rough riding). Once we reached khandala there was hell lot of traffic. Express way was full of trucks, buses and cars. We decided to take another route but that was also packed. I had never seen four wheelers there. Somehow we bypassed traffic, reached Lonavala and waited for others to come. In Lonavala it was bit cold, we went to restaurant which was kind of dhaba. All travel buses were taking halt there. We had coffee, vada pav etc and left for Pune. It  was 2:40 AM now. We were still having so many kilometers to cover and we were really very late from our schedule. We started riding bit fast. As we crossed Pune, our hand started freezing and finger becoming senseless/numb. We were stopping to warm our hand and having tea, coffee. I was tailing so I was making sure no one is falling behind. Aadik was feeling too much cold in his finger. He was trying his best to cop up. He was stopping again and again to warm his hand. He was keeping his hand on bike’s silencer so that his finger could react properly. I was also feeling cold but he was in more trouble. I was carrying two sets of gloves. I gave him one set of gloves but after riding few kilometers he was not feeling comfortable with those gloves so I gave him gloves I was wearing. He was feeling bit relax now and could ride. We speed up and catch other group members, afterwards we were riding continuously. Now why we have to struggle so much from cold because temperature was 17 degree Celsius and when you are riding on 70-80kmph, you really feel it like 12-13 degree Celsius. Early morning we crossed Satara, we took some good snaps of rising sun. For few seconds I was calm, relax and looking at sun. That is the time when you can actually see the sun without any trouble with open eyes and it looks beautiful.

We started riding again. We wanted to stop and bit sleepy as well but cannot because we were really late. 9:00 AM in the morning we reached, had breakfast and went for sleep. We slept for 4-5 hours and had lunch around 3:30 PM. We went to Nehru garden, very nice and peaceful place. Garden embraces the history of Koyna dam. They have small museum for the same. As it was getting dark, we rushed back to hotel, had dinner and decided to go out around 10:30 PM. We were roaming in the village's street and it was full dark. Everybody was sharing horror stories, which were quite horrifying during late night and moreover we lost the route while going back to hotel hahaha. In the hotel there was another group of senior people. One of them approached and asked where have we been come from and all. They started sharing their life experience. They were really surprised to know that we have ridden so much to come here on bike. Late night we went to our room, discussed personal stuffs and slept. In the night around 2:00 AM someone knocked our door. Rahul Patil went out to check but he couldn’t see anyone. I also got up from knocking noise but I didn't go out but silently lying on bed. Damn tired. Next day we asked everyone who was there but no one accepted. Till today that’s mystery who was there. By the way I forgot to tell you, in the night while roaming in village by mistake we went to Shamshan ghat area when we lost while coming back to hotel. Damn !!! We were really frightened and seriously it was really scary.

Day 3: We all got up 6:00 AM in the morning to see the sun rise, beautiful dam covered with fog and believe me it was mesmerizing. We got ready after taking beautiful snaps and left 9:30 AM in the morning. We reached Chiplun in 1 hour. Fuel up our tank and had heavy breakfast. We planned not to stop for lunch. Now actual ride started. There are lot of ghats on Mumbai-Goa highway that’s what we wanted to explore and enjoy and yes I like to ride in ghat. My friend Aniket was recording ghat. I stopped to adjust his action camera. That was the time I left behind. He went ahead and I stuck in traffic. In ghat you cann’t actually overtake easily. It’s not easy. Once I got out of the traffic. I was riding continuously 80-90 kmph but din't see any group member. In some town I saw one of member but in traffic I lost group again. Actually they stopped there but I couldn’t realize so I moved ahead. Now again I was riding continuously 80-90 kmph and sometime crossing 100 kmph as well. Later I got calls from friends. We shared our location and I was 11 kms ahead of them LOL. I waited for all of them to come. They brought bananas for me, we relaxed there for sometime and started journey again. We reached Pali, visited ballaleshwar ganpati temple. We took khopoli route as road is good to go except few patches. Almost everyone reached home by 8:30 PM in the night.

For koyna dam, your hotel location is important for the view to capture. If anyone visiting koyna dam. There are two routes to reach there one is Mumbai-Banglore highway and another Mumbai-Pune highway. Mumbai-Banglore road is safe to ride in the night and Mumbai-Goa highway for daytime. Hope you like the content. 😍

Happy Riding !!! 😎

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