January 20, 2025
Khanapur to Tilari Wadi
I left Khanapur in the dark as I felt today could be difficult. My map showed no roads going to Tilari Wadi unless I took a long detour via Belgaum city so I was reliant on the route RWGPS gave me. That included two sections of tracks, each about 3 miles long, and I guessed those might be the problem places. I tried to work out what to do if they were impassible and the options were to backtrack and then head to Goa on a main road. Further South than I wanted to be.
I got onto the first track after about 7 miles and it was a smooth footpath going to a derelict house. A high maize field was on the right, forest to the left, and a family of wild pigs crossed one by one just in front of me and disappeared into the maize. They were dark brown, about the size of a spaniel, but looked pretty solid.
RWGPS told me I was going the right way to the next road but at the boundary of the field there was a deep ditch. Too wide to pass the bike over or jump across and too deep to go into. Instead I went sideways and raised the lowest strand of a barbed wire fence so that the unladen bike and luggage under could go underneath before clambering with them up a bank and onto the road.
Track 2 was again a single track path but this time I could see that motorbikes had been using it. It opened up to a wider car track and as expected crossed a stream on a bridge below a dam. I then reached a locked gate.
I backtracked as I had seen a roadway going up to the dam, and there was locked gate No2.
The only option was to follow a track along an irrigation canal…..which after a muddle of bridges got me onto the road I wanted to be on.
The trouble with the road was that it really was in bad condition and was breaking up. The area is a large nature reserve and people in the past were moved out as the dams were built and the land flooded so the road goes nowhere and will keep on decaying. It is that difficult balance of people vs nature, but in this area civilisation was being kept away.
My direction on that road was towards civilisation but it took me through Tilari Nagar which seemed to be a ghost town with few people but many unused buildings. Finally I got onto the National Hiway, smooth tarmac and almost zero traffic, and reached the edge of the Western Ghats. This was at about 2000ft above the coastal plane below. The air was hot and dusty and not photogenic but the Western Ghats are an impressive steep ridge running North - South along the Western coast of India. My route down was simple enough but starting off at the top was what I imagine launching off on a ski jump might feel like. My rim brakes were just adequate to slow me but in places could not stop me!
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Thankfully after the Ghats the road was smooth and not too busy and continued to be slightly downhill. I reached Tilari Wadi and found a Lodge.
The Lodge was clean and looked little used but the electricity was off until the evening and my phone had no signal. On the positive side it was quiet and good samosas were on sale nearby!
Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 410 miles (660 km)
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