A total of 878kms from Kandivli East, covering all the 8 Swayambhu Vinayakas located around Mumbai & Pune in Maharashtra, this is a journey of faith, patience and lot of discoveries. As the first crow of the day cawed, we started our journey this year. Its always best to begin early to avoid traffic. Its also quite inspiring to see a beautiful sun-rise once in a while.Quite chilly, but worth it. The Ashtavinayak Route is as follows ;
- Ganpati 1 @Kandivli East -Lenyadri (174 kms, 4 hours) A comfortable drive via Kalyan-Panvel-Malshej Ghat. From Malshej MTDC, its a 45minute drive to Lenyadri.The climb, up & back takes around an hour(500 steps cut out of rocks!) depending on your health, the crowds for darshan & the weather
- Ganpati 2 @ Lenyadri - Ozhar (25kms, 30-45mins) - From Ozhar, at 10kms is Otur, take a right from the junction of Monica Lodge, get to the state road (bright fields on both sides),after a short drive, take another right, add another 10kms & you are at Ozhar.There's a shorter cut to reach Ozhar, however we've seen that road either getting repaired, or partially damaged 5/7 times!
- Ganpati 3 @Ozhar - Ranjangaon (105kms, 1hr 40mins) - From Ozhar, a 10mins drive takes you to the NH-50, the Pune-Nashik Highway, where you get into Narayangaon, now take a right which goes towards Rajgurunagar, this is a 40min drive.Rajgurunagar has an Institute for Research in Onion & Garlic).Next landmark is Chakan, from here, the highway turns 4-lane and its a smooth, pleasant drive.From Chakan, take left to the Chakan-Shikrapur road, on the right hand side is the Ranjangaon Mahaganapati temple.
- Ganpati mailto:3@Ranjangaon - Theur (50kms, 1 hour drive) - When leaving the temple, take the road towards Pune, SH62, which is the Pune-Ahmednagar road. This passes via Shikrapur & then once you reach Wagholi, take the left to village Kesnand, from here, take a right to Theur.
- Ganpati mailto:4@Theur - Siddhitek (90kms, 2.5 hrs) - From Theur, take the NH9 ie., Pune-Sholapur highway. From Patas, take a left for SH67, which goes towards Daund. Daund is 15kms from Patas and Siddhitek is around 33kms.Before entering Daund, there's a bridge on the left which goes to Siddhitek. Several patches of this road are in bad shape, so it takes a good amount of time to cover the last 20kms or so.
- Ganpati 6 @Siddhitek - Moregaon (49kms, 1 hr) - Back on the same road from Daund, touch the NH9, drive till Chaufula, take a left towards Moregaon. Road from Chaufula is a narrow, straight, single lane road.
- Ganpati mailto:6@Moregaon - Pali (217kms, 4.5 hrs) - Take the road towards Pune from Moregaon, via NH-4, reach the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Take the Khopoli exit. From Khopoli, Pali is around 30kms, on SH92.This is a beautiful single lane road with lots of curves, roller-coaster type ups& downs, tall trees, several small rivers and mountains on both sides
- Ganpati 8 @Pali - Mahad (43kms, 1hr) - From Pali, come back on SH92, and up until NH-4 (near the Expressway junction) and proceed further to Mahad.
- Some useful sites which offer all possible details ; http://www.ashtavinayak.net/ & http://www.punediary.com/html/ashtavinayak.html
