AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 135 of 332 The hill station is in the Sahaydri range and the origin of the mighty Krishna river is from here along with four other rivers. Mahabaleshwar is also the summer state capital of Bombay presidency and I suppose now of Maharashtra. Famous for its strawberries, there are eateries specialising in serving the fruit with cream, yummy delicious! The stay in the club was worth going on the Konkan trip! The dinner was typically colonial starting with mulligatawny soup and ending with apple pie and caramel custard, served course by course. The club had an attached naturally made golf course with browns. Navneeth and I did not want to miss out on that and played a game there before departure. Next morning we set course for the coast driving westwards. The club clerk with whom the bills had to be settled was a nice and helpful chap. Being a local I thought he would direct us to the coast. He promptly opened the computer and hit the Google search button. I withdrew my request. The stretch in search of the coast was a beauty. Winding roads that have been cut into the mountains with sparse population gave a sense of adventure and exhilarating beauty. This short distance in our long itinerary itself justified doing this road trip. Our original intention was to hit Goa by dusk. The ghat roads and our leisurely driving was taking us about 40 kms an hour. We actually chased the Sunset that was so beautiful in the western sky and ended up in a place called Ganapathipule on the coast, 193 kms fromMahabaleshwar. It was a spectacular Sunset. The town is historic because of a Swayambu Ganapathi statue on the rock on the cliff overhanging the Arabian Sea. We managed to get rooms in the Maharashtra tourism hotel which was a dream location. The entrance to the hotel was next to the temple and our rooms on the backside were sea facing, almost on the sea. Surely cometh the hour cometh the man was Lord Ganapathi for bringing us to a location that was unheard of and was not in the plan. We had darshan easily and the temple also gave a substantial amount of food as prashad that can be eaten in a dining hall. Tommy and Savitri indulged in water sports in the morning whereas Navneeth and I feasted on the sea and its beauty. Konkan coast is different