The
morning of day 6 was as pleasant as a morning gets in
Bangalore. Today we would have the TV crew covering
the leg, so we left at 7.30am and headed straight to
Vidhan Soudha for taking some shots of the cars in the
garden city.
Our GPS started acting up only a few minutes after we
left. After a point, it switched off and wouldn’t
come on. Looked like the heat had taken its effect on
the device. It wouldn’t turn on even after numerous
attempts to restart it. We decided to let it be and
made our way to Goa since we had other devices to fall
back on.
Maintaining
a constant pace, we were making decent progress until
a wrong turn at Tumkur made us take a detour through
a small village road which slowed us down. The road
wasn’t great, but we were determined to not lose
time. Avoiding potholes and ditches, this section was
much like driving a WRC stage. Our navigators had their
hands full as they grappled with the map books, GPS
while keeping an eagle eye out for potholes. The road
was bad but it was certainly fun and brought some much
needed excitement.
Once
back on the NH4 we were able to keep good pace. The
NH4 being part of the ‘Golden Quadrilateral’
has wide well marked roads with excellent surface and
is far more efficient to drive on than normal highways.
We crossed Rannebenur a little before 4pm, the car’s
trip read 337kms and stopped for lunch soon after.
As
we headed to Hubli, the rain gods were looming in the
distance and they let loose towards the evening. It
was a welcome relief as the temperatures immediately
dropped. Driving through the rain is definitely better
than fighting our way through the sun and I can vouch
that the team wholeheartedly agrees.
After
the showers, we noticed the Fiesta’s ABS light
was on. We suspected it was dust on the sensors (the
Fiesta was following us closely through the detour and
the Ikons were kicking up a lot of dust). While trying
to check the brake fluid level, one of our teammates
accidentally dropped the cap into the engine bay and
in the darkness, it took us half an hour to find it.
On
NH4A, the surface was patchy and a section before Khanapur
was ridiculously bad and the team was shattered on seeing
Jeeps finding it difficult to cross truck swallowing
potholes. The surface got better as we closed on Panjim.
And we finally made it to the hotel a little after midnight.
On
filling up, the figures read as follows.
Ikon 1 – 27.48kpl
Ikon 2 – 28.01kpl
We
head next to Hampi which is roughly a distance of about
400kms away.
|
