Trip to Nerwa, Himachal Pradesh

Bhai wanted to drive dad's car to Nerwa, where he has recently joined as a doctor, and take some kitchen things to setup his house, climate and road conditions were not very good so that we allow him to drive alone, he drives well but being youngest in family we do restrict him to go extreme adventures alone, I assured him that i will drive to his place on coming weekend and bring all the things he wanted. He has already packed things so he gave a list of items he needed and went to Nerwa by HRTC bus service. 

Route Map

These days i drive to my hometown every friday night and come back to workplace Delhi on sunday night. 28th feb'14 was off for me on the occasion of Maha-Shivratri. so i traveled to Nahan on thursday night itself, and planned to travel to Nerwa on friday, my friend Lalit and Surjeet also agreed to join me. Friday was a sunny day but still we got our jackets and extra clothes packed as we knew we were going to higher altitude. finishing some local things we all finally started at about 3:30PM.

Photo Shot at Dhanoi

We started from Nahan towards Renuka and Road is in good condition but because of too many curves it doesn't allow to travel the route faster. After reaching Renuka we took the road to Sangrah, This road is always memorable road to me i have traveled a lot on this road on my scooter Bravo while my dad was posted at Rajana, This road is very well managed , PWD has appointed some old employees to clean this road on daily basis. These people keep walking on the road along with their brooms and keep roads clean, it makes road very good for even two wheelers.  We stopped at a Dhaba at Dhanoi and had tea, this place has natural water spring and a floor grindstone which is run by flowing water energy. After reaching sangrah we moved ahead towards Haripurdhar, by this time we have turned on head lamps of the car, as usual i was on the driving seat from the beginning, while we were doing lots of talk.

Lalit Playing in Snow at Haripurdhar

Our Machine, brought out safe from snow roads

We were continuously riding upwards and temperature was dropping. While we were around 5 Km away from Haripurdhar, i felt that rain on the windshield wasn't making much noise, I stopped car assuming its snow, Lalit sitting next to me was having no idea why i have stopped car, while opening door i told him that its snow outside, and yes it was snow, very tiny balls were coming down floating in the air, I have seen snow lot of times but haven't experienced snowfall in my life till now, same was situation with Lalit, we enjoyed a lot at that place for a while and size of snowball kept increasing it was snowing harder now, Surjeet sitting inside shouted on us and asked us to move else we will get struck in snow.  Surjeet has already seen snowfall many times and might have drove on snow roads, He asked to keep driving in a consistent speed and told me avoid hard breaking. Myself and Lalit were enjoying it. Wind speed also increased and snowballs were randomly shaking on front of car lights, visibility was very low but we managed to drive though snow and reached Haripurdhar situated at about 2500 Mtrs above sea level, We had tea at this point and also brought some chocolates for instant energy. Localities told to be careful for next 2 km as road will have snow and we have to go down the hill from here.

We started down the hill, road was very bad after Haripurdhar, This road is not yet marked on the Google map (at the time of blog writing, i have added road to the google map, but its waiting for google reviewer to approve). We have to travel down the hills for about 20 Km upto Fedis bridge, this road was totally damaged. I drove 2-3 km slowly as it was snow area and then drive was all about preventing car to get into path holes.

Fedis bridge is a spot which connects Himachal and Uttarakhand, left is Himachal and right road goes to Uttarakhand via Tiuni. After bridge we were a bit  relaxed after seeing good road with proper reflectors and iron-railing fitted on the left side.we have to climb up the hill for 18Km to reach Nerwa, About a  kilometer after the bridge we were stopped at a police check post, he allowed us to move ahead after he noted down vehicle and driver details. last 2 kms of this stretch was not so good, again too many curves on the road don't allowed us to get more than 30Km/hr as average speed.

Nerwa as seen from Adarsh's House

We reached Nerwa at 10 PM and called brother. he has done staying arrangement at local guest house near his clinic, we parked the car near his clinic and had a nice dinner prepared by Dr. Adarsh and his roomie Durga Dutt Sharma. Temprature went down due to snow at Haripurdhar area, it was raining continuously at nerwa as well.  Next day we got up at about 7 in the morning, had tea at a teastall near to guest house and then climbed up the hill to see brother's rented house. His house was on the top of the hill and we have to walk upto that place as there were no road for reach at that place. We took pictures from his house, complete Nerwa was visible from the top. It was bright sunny day, Localities told that road via harirdhar is blocked due to 1 feet snow, we could have gone via choupal - shimla but that road was also reported blocked. now we had 2 options either to go via Shilai or via Uttarakhand. We decided to visit Hatkoti Temple around 70 Kms from here and then return back to Nahan, Adarsh also joined us for Hatkoti Temple.

Lalit at Tiuni Bridge

After coming down from Nerwa to Fedis bridge we took road towards Tiuni, this was again single road, though road was having iron railing on side but road condition was very bad, Lalit occupied the driving seat somewhere in the middle of this stretch, Road was too dangerous, being a driver and siting on left side is always scary, and i realized this when lalit started driving. Lalit told me to assume how he could have felt while i was driving. After traveling for 2 hours 30 minutes we reached Tiuni, Uttarakhand , Hatkoti Temple was more 30km from here. after seeing bad road we decided to go back else we would have to stay back at nerwa for tonight as well. We did Namaskar from Tiuni Bridge and returned back towards fedis bridge, luckily we found HRTC bus going towards Nerwa and sent Adarsh in the Bus. Now our Next destination was Rohnat, My Jijju is posted as Tehsildar at Rohnat, We called him to inform that we are on the way to Rohnat, Jijju invited us to have lunch together, Rohnat is again a small village located down the Haripurdhar hills, After spending some time at Rohnat and tasty lunch we continued the drive.

We found the FarmVille village while returning from Tiuni

Traveling from one hill to other we reached a place called Meenus i guess we entered into Uttarakhand area from here, and the bad roads, a Mahindra Bolero was driving along with us and both of us were driving slowly inquiring about the road conditions from whoever comes in the way. We were climbing up the hills continuously, on one side it was sliding hills and other was deep valley.

Another break at Meenus

Somewhere near to Rohnat

We were driving along with river Toons around 1Kilometer down on our right. While coming back i wanted to come via Shilai because i have never seen that area but Lalit and Surjeet have recently visited Shilai area and they were not ready to go via Shilai because of bad roads, also localities at Nerwa and Rohnat suggested us to take road via Uttarakhand, because it was better as compared. But seriously this road was not at all safe, road was not constructed we havn't found any truck on this road, as it was not for trucks. it was raining hard and three of us were worried about expected landslides in the situation. Landslide could have made us halted in this region as all of us knew that no machines were expected to clear the way.
After restlessly driving 40 Kms for 3 hours we reached on the top of the hill safely, Now road was little wider but still broken at some points, we met the Bolero driver at this point and had tea, that Bolero guy was also first time traveler on this road, Now i occupied the driving seat though surjeet was waiting for his turn, by not driving i was scared a lot already ;), Car started going downwards i was able to move car little faster though i bumped into many pathholes. We crosed Kothi Dam built over river Kothi. Road after Dam road was much better, Crossing Dakpathar, Vikasnagar finally we reached Paonta Sahib, our friend Amit Walia was waiting for us here, We had lot of talk over the dinner table. and told him our experience of driving on this adventures route. Walia took the driver seat from Paonta Sahib to Nahan, We reached back at Nahan at 11 PM. 

I forgot to share interesting thing we noticed  during this ride, people who drive in these regions have very nice driving sense, almost all of them give way to drivers coming upwards hill, whenever drivers going down the hill see some vehicle coming upward , they definitely stops at comfortable place to give way to vehicle coming upside. Roads are very narrow and can't afford crossing of two vehicles at all the places, hence this act is very much required, We also learned this and at many place stopped our car to give way to vehicles coming upward.