I recently went on a over night trip to Dive Aghar. It is a wonderful place that is not documented about enough!! In fact my internet search on Dive Aghar was quite useless.
I’m trying to pen my experience in two parts. In this part, I talk about the journey.
Well, to talk about its location, Dive Aghar is located on the Konkan coast in the state of Maharashtra in India. It is about 165 Km from Pune. We travelled by car and took the Tamhini Ghat route to get there. Since we travelled in early September, all of the landscape was covered with brilliant green grass and dense vegetation. The journey too thus was really beautiful.
We left Pune at 7 AM and met with little traffic. We exited Pune from Chandani Chowk and made our way to Paud. From Paud village, we continued towards Mulshi. The road was good inspite of the heavy rainfall that this region had received in the previous monsoon months. Once we reached Mulshi though, the road turned into a nightmare. It was an extremely bumpy ride and for quite a while I could not drive beyond 25 km per hr! We sighted the backwaters of the Mulshi dam as we went on. The whole area was lush and beautiful. It had taken us about an hour and a half to get there. The reading on my odometer was 40 Km.
We continued our way towards Tamhini Ghat. This was the first time that I had travelled beyond Mulshi on that road. It was amazing!! The road was right beside the Mulshi lake and it was lovely to drive that road.
Soon we left the lake behind. The road continued to be potholed in many parts and the going was quite slow. But the prettiness of the landscape was such that I didn’t really mind. We wound our way through Tamhini Ghat where we noticed a lot of rocks strewn about as a result of landslides.
The Ghat had quite a few small waterfalls which prompted some picnickers to take a halt and enjoy the scenery.
Before starting out, we had studied the local maps in detail and were certain about the way. But since we could not see any milestone pointing out Mangaon, we stopped to ask some passers-by if we were on the right road which we thankfully were.
We reached a fork in the road soon after. It was called Viley Phata (Phata means split in Marathi, which is the regional language). The sign board informed us that we had to take a left to reach Mangaon which was about 25 km from that point. The right would have taken us to Kolad on the Bombay Goa highway. Kolad was about 22 Km away. We took the left to Mangaon from where we would go on to Dive Aghar.It was about 10.15 AM then.
I was pretty exhausted with the driving by then. I had packed some sandwiches to munch on the way which we gladly bit into.
The road was good in most parts. I sped up to make up for the time lost over the bad roads we had left behind. We passed Nizampur on the way and reached Mangaon at 10.40 AM.
About 2 minutes from the bus stand was the right turn to Dive Aghar. We bumped about as though riding a camel for a while. We passed Mhasla which is about 22 Km from Mangaon after an hours’ worth of driving.
We crossed many small bridges over streams and brooks. It was absolutely lovely. We reached Borli where at a fork in the road, we took the turn towards Dive Aghar. One road led to Sriwardhan, another coastal town about 35 Km from Dive Aghar.
The sun was properly out by now and we had started feeling the humidity of the coastal region. We entered Dive Aghar after about 51/2 hrs of rattling our bones.
To my surprise, there was big welcoming arch at the entrance to it and we drove through wondering what to expect.
Hey Sangeeta (I hope that’s your name),
That was really sweet!! Infact I was looking for some information to go to Mulshi this weekend and I came across your travelogue. It really impressed me and also there was a lot of information about the route to take etc…
Hope you had a nice time.
Keep updating with similar experiences since I have bookmarked your page 🙂
Regards,
Chinmoy
This is a great article. I had been to Goa just a couple of days back and had a great time. I however, had decided that my immediate next vacation would not be at a beach side place. But after reading your two articles on Dive Ghar, I feel I am ready for Dive Ghar next! It is so much more that just laxing around on the beach sand.
Hi
This is very infomative article, wriiten and expressed well.
I hope you had a lovely trip
keep informed about more lovey places
regards,
Rajesh
hi ,
hope u had a gr8 time @ Dive Aghar 🙂
i m planning to go there this week end can u please tell me the distance in KM from pune to that place and if possible give me the contact no of the hotel where u stayed so i can do the advance booking :
Thanx and Regards
Hi,
could you please help with some phoen nos. to contact incase we need to do someprior bookings for stay. I have heard about this place from friends too.. Keep updating about your trip… cheers..
Happy new year.
Hi Readers,
Thanks for your kind comments.
Following are the Kelkar and Bapat Phone Numbers:
Staying at Kelkar’s (This is not a hotel but a cottage with very basic facilities. We were charged Rs 600 per night)
02147 – 224242
24460867 (Pune Contact Number)
Eating at Bapat’s
02147 – 224377
thanks,
Sangeeta
Hello Sangeeta,
Thank you very much for this detailed information. I really appreciate your efforts to note minute details and giving reference for stay and food.
Thanks & Regards,
Shailesh
hello sangeeta
u r great,we were serching such a information about diveaghar for our BHATKANTI.u really provided us what we wanted.
Excellent article. I have taken a print of this blog. I will be going to Dive Agar on 16th Feb.
Hi Sangeeta,
I think u had great joy @ Dive agar.
Its really nice article the way you have described, specially journey. You made it so simple to get it. And thanks more such information. can you tell me the exact distance from Chandni chowk?
Thanks & regards
Neeraj P
Hi Sangeeta,
Loved your blog. Let me know, if I can upload my Dapoli Picnic experience & pics on your blog. Myself is from Pune working as Software Engineer in MNC.
Warm Regards,
– Chandrakant
Hey ur blogs is amazing. a couple of us actually chalked down a road map based on the details and drove our way with easy to the “heaven” I am from Goa and have tried various restaurants in Pune for good fish curry rice, but in vain…..dive agar was the place that finally served me some good fish….damn i am alredy missing it now 🙂
cheers
Sandeep
hi,
great info .. i was just looking for this kind of details. thanks a lot
much detail info but in all it would be great if u mentioned total KM’s from Pune
i think its 170 Km let me c when i reach there 🙂
thanks a lot again
Umesh Todkar
Hi,
Thanks for your information.
It is very useful.
Pushkar
Hello Sangeeta, you have given a detailed information on how to reach dive aagar from pune by car !
Thanks !I hope we find no problem reaching there , tomorrow !
God bless you !
i am totally disappointed that being a maharashtrian you are using Bombay instead of Mumbai
Hi Sangeeta,
I was looking for some info on Tamhini Ghat, as I heard its a great alternative to Malshej Ghat for a weekend getaway.(now that Malshej Ghat is not good enough for family picnics because of the predominant presence of hoodlams). I came across your article and I am now convinced that I should go there in the monsoons. Thank you for sharing your experience online. This really is a great help for people on the look out for newer, beautiful places of interest. I’ve been to Dive Aghar, so I know how you must have enjoyed there. Thank you once again for providing such detailed information about your route. I think this will encourage all of us to share our experiences also, and help our fellow travellers.
Thanks & Regards
Nikhil
Hello Sangeeta,
When u had been to Dive Agar, Recently? Coz we are planning to go there this weekend. How is the road condition and the climate over there? Please do reply.
Thanks and regards,
Shripad
heyy …
i found your article above really helpfull
though i would really appreciate if you could provide me some phone numbers of a hotel or any good staying place there
since all the oncew which i know are overbooked right now.
please mail me as soon as you can..
thank you very much…
Hi,
Nice reading all about diveghar.
I visited diveghar it was nice place, i would like to visit again, but if u can help me with the phone no.any beach resort for (MTDC)i think only 1 MTDC resort is there.