2023 Monsoon drive: 17 cars drive 2000 km across the Konkan coast

Polls were conducted for the following to ensure that we not only have our usual suspects make it for the trip but also try and meet everyone’s common expectations out of this drive.

BHPian paragsachania recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

When the monsoon beckons, it is always time to hit the roads and celebrate rains.

….and we did it again, 2000+ km of rain-soaked roads, and blissful experience of the magical monsoons of Konkan coast. Let it rain!!

Monsoon Drive 2023 edition witnessed rains and more rains on all the days of our itinerary, perhaps the highest by far from all our earlier monsoon drives. It was non-stop and relentless many a times, thus helping us culminate yet another memorable trip to the Konkan Coast. The fleet this time was larger than last year with 17 cars in all shapes and sizes that wanted to drench in the monsoon rains.

Konkan coast of Maharashtra was the obvious choice with location and route tactically chosen to ensure there was least overlap during onward as well as return legs and also avoid driving on the same routes that we would have covered during the previous edition of Monsoon drives.

The Sahyadris offer plethora of choices of Ghats when it comes to hitting the western coast. NH66 (for us it will always be NH17), popularly known as Bombay-Goa highway still does not follow a path closer to the coastline like Karnataka due to which there are more circuitous, scenic and internal ghat routes even on the west of NH66 too before you hit the 0 MSL locations on the coastline.

A combination of all these along with the distinct and enchanting shade of monsoon green in this region, complemented by large to exceptionally large water bodies, overflowing river steams and numerous waterfalls influences us heavily to make a trip to this region during every monsoon. For a short weekend trip, we have our very own Western Ghats down-south which we keep driving even with the shortest of notice.

Links to our earlier monsoon drive travelogues:

2015 – Monsoon Drive to Panchagani – 1700 km, 8 cars
2016 – Monsoon Drive to Konkan – 1750 km, 6 cars
2018 – Monsoon Drive to Tahmini and beyond – 2000 km, 8 cars
2022 – Monsoon Drive to Ganapatipule & Malvan – 1800 km, 16 cars

Planning for the drive, logistics and other preparations:

Even if one of us forgets, we start getting gentle nudges and reminders from our close circle of friends to wear our thinking hats who ignite the discussion for the next Monsoon drive. It wasn’t any different this year too.

Polls were conducted for the following to ensure that we not only have our usual suspects make it for the trip but also try and meet everyone’s common expectations out of this drive.

Preferred dates to drive
Number of days for the round trip (3 or 4)
How many km would one prefer to drive on each of the days
How many were willing to drive and also ready to sacrifice their rides and ride shotgun
Choice of stay – By the beach or the hills
Which section of Konkan coast this time?

One of the sections that we wanted to cover this time was between Alibag and Guhagar -Srivardhan, Harihareshwar, Dapoli to be precise. However, this being located up north on the Konkan coast and that meant reaching here would need at least 2 driving days, in peace given the current road conditions.

It also meant that the next day’s drive will be tedious if we targeted a destination from where Bangalore was 14 hours. Also, there was no joy staying enroute on a highway on the second day to make the 3rd day shorter in terms of driving. Our usual practice is to leave around 4 am on the last day so that we make it to Nelamangala (entrance to Bangalore) by 5 pm max.

With the inputs received from the attendees in terms of their preferences and the location factors, following was the route that was finalized: Bangalore Bhor Varandha Mahad Diveagar Arrey Warrey Anuskura Ghat Kolhapur Bangalore – 1970 km.

Number of days – 4 versus 3:

Considering the prevalent weather conditions based on various forecasts, the time of the year, the region we were headed to, and condition of roads, especially the battered sections of NH66, our past experiences kept poking us to hint that the drive this time be split into 4 days instead of 3. This will allow us to reach our POI and destination for first day at Konkan by lunch time, giving us enough time to settle down and spend the rest of the time at the property, peacefully.

It was critical to factor the driving experiences of all including the endurance levels for such drives. While most in our group are used to marathon runs few were not. We felt that it was better to take a conscious call, break the trip into 4 days. This would also allow us to split the journeys into short sprints and that also meant we no longer have to wake up at 1 am, get ready and reach JAS toll (our usual rendezvous point) at 3 am and drive all day to reach the destination around sunset.

Finally, after much ado, here is how the 4-day itinerary looked like and to be honest, the estimated time that we had calculated factoring the number of cars, refueling and food stops, and the road conditions was almost spot-on for all the days (we were slightly delayed on Day 02).

For all the obvious purposes, we referred to Bangalore–Belgaum leg as Day 00 because this day had no fixed plan. We allowed everyone to take their own decisions but ensure that they reach Belgaum such that next day they can start sharp at 05:00am. There were few attendees who had to attend evening teleconference meetings and had to reach Belgaum by lunch time while few of us chose to opt for a leave and start from Bangalore at our own convenient time.

Booking the accommodation:

The plan was to stay at Diveagar and for the second night we wanted to stay south of Ratnagiri. However, most of the resorts we connected to declined supporting our requirement purely based on staff shortage and primarily because July is off-season. One of them was under renovation too!

Belgaum: With 33 attendees for Belgaum stay, intent was not only to find a place for the night but also a place that can gobble 17 cars in their parking lot. BHPian speedsatya helped us with his contacts to book Hotel Ramdev at Belgaum, a popular transit hotel since more than 3 decades in the heart of Belgaum city and this one perfectly met our requirements.
Diveagar: As always, HVK comes to rescue, and this time was no different. We got a fantastic place of stay around Diveagar, right on the beach. The property, location and the service surpassed our expectations since we were 33 guests, and it was off-season.
Ganapatipule: While our last year’s place of stay too was Ganapatipule, we had limited choices this time around South of Ratnagiri as mentioned earlier. Due to this, we had decided to stay at a Resort overlooking the beautiful Arabian sea near Ganapatipule.

Planning the stops & other logistics:

As always, BHPian arun_josie helped us with the walkie-talkies, an essential gadget which is extremely useful for such drives and broadcast communications.
Fuel stops were meticulously planned factoring 17 cars and their ranges. We also split the refueling stops so that it is more efficient rather than rushing to one place with 17 cars
Options were provided to the members for lunch and dinner at Belgaum for Day 0 and each one could decide on their own since not everyone was reaching Belgaum at the same time
Breakfast for Day 1 was at Fern, Karad and pre-booked. This worked really well and easy to manage too, including parking
Lunch for Day 1 was the only challenge due to absence of good places to stop by that would cater to 33 guests. However, we managed this superbly on the go (more on that later)
Dinner for Day 1 and breakfast for Day 2 was part of the package at the place of stay at Diveagar
Lunch and Dinner for Day 2 was also part of the package at the place of stay at Ganapatipule
Breakfast for Day 3 was unplanned but we had options and were confident on the places considered
Lunch for Day 3 was unplanned but for this too, we had choices to pick from depending on our progress
Details of each member along with Blood group and emergency contact was collected and a list was made
Details about choice of food was also collected so that it was easy to plan a fixed menu at the places we stayed (Veg and Non-Veg)
Every member was shared with PDF documents with detailed plans for all the days including Google map coordinates. One of the reasons to do this was to allow certain members to take their own decisions in case they miss the group for some reason (crossing a busy town, missing an important turn etc.)
The document also included DOs and DONTs and a checklist for every member, especially for their cars for such long trips
WhatsApp groups were created with read-only privilege where limited members from the organizing team would post important communications
Daily briefing before calling it a day and in the morning was done briefly explaining the plan for the next day (or the same day)
Key members who are photography aficionados ensured to have their gear ready before the trip, including drone(s)

The men and their machines:

After all the surveying that was done through polls, we ended up with 17 cars and 33 members which is almost 1:2 ratio between cars and passengers. Couple of us received PMs on Team-Bhp and via other channels asking if they can join us.

We have been a close circle of friends since couple of years now heading for these monsoon drives on regular basis. Over the last 2 to 3 years, this has only grown bigger. In fact, we had over 40 members who showed keen interest to join but we had to cut down and limit it to 33 after much ado. The challenges were aplenty here:

Too many cars are difficult to manage – Parking or driving
New members, unknown temperaments, uncertain driving habits
Getting accommodation for all at one property for a large group
New members’ acceptance to the format of the drive, endurance levels and their varied interests

I would like mention that few of us who received your PMs would sincerely express regret for not being able to accommodate you for this drive. To be absolutely honest, we really want to cap the number of members and cars to what we have right now since each year, the efforts required to plan and execute this is getting tougher too. Moreover, this is a drive that spans 2000 km on an average over a round trip with at least 3 full days of driving in some of the internal areas and hence needs thorough planning and nothing can be impromptu or last minute.

That being said, I will let this post talk about the men and their machines who made it for the drive. Out of 17 cars, we had 2 cars start from Puttur while the rest of the 15 cars started from Bangalore. During the onward trip, we all merged at Belgaum while on return, the Puttur group split from Ganapatiphule itself.

1. arun_josie in his Jeep Compass with speedsatya riding shot gun: