John & Mick's BIG AdventureIndore to Pune
Day 69 – 410 kms (16699 kms total)
We left Hotel Baywatch at 06:45 in light rain and headed back to the ring road. The dual carriageway ended quickly and within 10km, the road surface disappeared completely. It didn’t really improve for the next 200km. It took us 5 hour to complete that 200kms!
Lorries are out in abundance and our first challenge is a huge traffic jam of lorries caused by some diggers re-terracing sides of the road after landslides. We get to a hundred metres from the blockage and sit and wait a while before we decide we CAN get through the gap. The truckers helped by moving an inch or 2 to help our passage through the really tight ones..
We ride through the The Vindhya Range and Satpura Hills, which provide some lovely views, but the cloud, rain and terrible track detract from the potential appreciation.
Considering this is the main road between Mumbai and Delhi, it is poor advertisement for Indian roads. We also see some more wrecks. Trucks into trucks, trucks into cars, (messy), buses into trucks. Twelve in all today!
The end of the Satpura mountain range, offers some great views, and the subsequent Satmala hills are Arizona-like peaks, but covered in greenery.
Also here, the road quality actually becomes ridable again.
We reach Nashik and find the only decent hotel in the book. A bit pricey, but less basic than of late.
We get a phone call from Anji in Pune. We arrange to call him when we get to the outskirts of Pune, tomorrow.
Day 70 – 210 kms (16909 kms total)
After a comfortable night, we get directions out of town, but find the road closed. A kindly local in a jeep, leads us down the opposite side of the road, which soon becomes a dual carriageway with a large concrete central reservation. We stick close behind him to avoid the wrath of oncoming buses and cars, until we get a chance to cross back to our side of the road.
Highway 50 runs from Nashik down to Pune, through the hills, where both the sun and palm trees make a re-appearance. It’s a welcome, well-surfaced road and the accompanying views make it a pleasant morning ride.
Traffic in Pune is hectic, but as we have contacted Anji, we are met at the main gates to the Army camp by his son, Asheesh and he leads us into town on his Enfield 500… with no baffles in his exhaust!
We are taken out for an evening’s entertainment at Toons, a local drinking establishment by Asheesh and his Dad Anji, where a large screen allows us to witness the appalling display of the English cricket team in the Second Test match against India 
(
We drink beer, lots of beer! As a result, everything I ate or drank bounced back up again. Feeling VERY delicate.
The next day was a very quiet affair as we both feel very “drained”. Ate nothing and drank water and slept.
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