BHPian rev8 recently shared this with other enthusiasts: Time for another travel story! On 2nd Nov, ISRO launched the CMS03 satellite onboard the LVM3 launch vehicle into geostationary orbit. I have always been an avid aeronautics fan (even wanted to build a career in aerospace), so no surprise that watching a launch live was always a bucket list item. Especially a GSLV launch (the big one)! Ever since ISRO created the launch view gallery, it became a dream to visit, but I wanted to do it through a road trip, and so had always been waiting to own a car before planning it. And so, the day I bought the car, I knew I will register to view the upcoming launch from Sriharikota! I found the best route to be through Tirupati and since there are no larger towns around Sriharikota for a night stay, we decided to stay in Tirupati and come back post the launch. It is a ~100km drive one-way from Tirupati to Sriharikota and the launch being scheduled for 5:26PM meant that a round trip post check-in was certainly possible. We left Bangalore a little before 8 AM. Here’s the first shot at the beauty! The roads till Chittoor are a 4-lane highway (as in the picture above) and had a few diversions on the way due to roadworks. In pure Karnataka fashion, most of these roadwork sites were deserted and showed no signs of progress, and the slip lanes were in incredibly poor shape. On some sections, I engaged the Offroad mode because the roads were non existent, but thankfully these were small sections (a flyover in length each). The roads however were beautiful and green. The quality of roads and landscapes only got better as we crossed the border into Andhra Pradesh. There is also a small ghat section between Palamaner and Chittoor, and I was able to have some fun with the Macan! After the left turn from Chittoor towards Tirupati, the highway becomes 6-lane and is extremely beautiful and well paved. This section also had more speed cameras every once in a while, and the speed limit of 80 on such a beautiful highway was a bummer, however, we enjoyed the calm, composed and silent ride gasping at the vivid landscapes. In one section, the railway track came close. In my childhood, I remember seeing some highways along the railway tracks while I was in one of the trains and it was a lot of fun seeing the train beat the cars. Only this time, I was on the other side, and had a lot of fun chasing the train, filled with nostalgia! It lasted only a couple kilometers though, but the views were beautiful. We then reached Tirupati and checked into the Marasa Sarovar Premiere. I was confused between this and the Taj, but ended up picking this for a few reasons – I did not need to spend much time in the hotel (round trip to Sriharikota and an early check out the next day), they had self-park and a safe parking area, was half the price of the Taj, and also had some amazing hill views. We checked-in, had lunch and got a little rest before proceeding to Sriharikota. The food at Sarovar was really good, and absolutely satisfied my Mughlai taste buds. I can wholly recommend this as a great place to spend time when in or around Tirupati. The Macan returned a fuel efficiency of 11.2kmpl which was honestly astonishing to me. And this was with a fair use of Sports mode on toll exits and empty straights, and Sports Plus mode in the ghat sections. I really loved the engine coasting mode where the RPM drops to around 0.7 and the car is able to maintain decent speed for quite some time before you need to accelerate again. Obviously this doesn’t work with cruise control on, so I mostly only used it on the boring straights. If I drove it sedately throughout, I can comfortably vouch that it will easily return a fuel efficiency of 13kmpl on the highways. We also stopped for about an hour at Murugan Idli and loved the food. So overall we reached Tirupati in about 4.5 hours with a driving time of roughly 3.5 hours. The way to Sriharikota passes through the Pulicat Bird Sanctuary. Me and my wife are not bird spotters, but we did see a few beautiful birds flying around. There were some view points on the way, so we stopped to take in the scenery and I took this beautiful shot! The road has the Pulicat lake (which is practically a water body of the Bay of Bengal) on both sides, so the drive was absolutely spectacular. Even if you are not going till Sriharikota, I can highly recommend a drive on this road. And so, we finally made it to the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota! Cue in the goosebumps! The launch was spectacular and we returned to Tirupati safely after to have yet another amazing dinner at the hotel. The next day, the breakfast had a lovely spread and also tasted very decent. We decided that while we are here, why not take a quick trip to Tirumala. My wife being a religious person was delighted, and I secretly was more interested in the drive up the mountain. And so, we did an early checkout and made our way to Tirumala. And we were greeted by this! It took us over 40 minutes just to reach the front of the queue and I was baffled by the requirement to step out of the car with all the luggage and pass through airport like security to cross the toll. This was my first experience with something so terribly managed and absolutely pointless 30 kms before the temple area. If only I had known in advance, I would have likely dropped the plan. But alas, we were stuck and since we had already reached the front, I didn’t want to give up on the drive experience. Lo and behold, the curves where the Macan started to roar and I drooled! Not to mention that the views were absolutely breathtaking! There is no need to write at depth about my experience of this drive! I have never had more fun in my life on a public road, I will stop at just that! Don’t ask me about the car’s driving dynamics or other geeky stuff because I was too emotionally involved. Okay just kidding! Once I had some fun, I started pushing it a little to get to know the Macan deeper. The turning radius turned out to be great for the size of the Macan. It was very easy to navigate on the hairpins, although the roads were superbly built even for bus sized vehicles, so it’s not the best benchmark. Mainly I noticed more differences between Sports and Sports Plus during these experiments. I had thought that it was only the RPM that starts to redline with Sports Plus, but noticed that the exhaust gets throatier, the throttle sharper, the gearshifts more agile and the chassis along with engaging its hardest setting also engages low mode, so the air suspension gets to work and drops 10 more millimeters in ground clearance. This all combined with the engine revving to 8000, provides a proper race track experience in the Macan.I dare say I had as much fun as I did on the track during the Porsche World Road Show! Post all the fun driving up and down the mountain and spending some time in Tirumala, we headed back to Bangalore. The landscapes were mesmerizing once again, to an extent reminded me of the roads around Jaipur, but greener and lusher. At one point, I was so mindblown by the views that it actually took me back to the NC500 road trip across Scotland. I just had to stop and capture the moments. Have a look for yourself! As you can see, the Macan picked up some dust which stuck on to it due to some very light rains. But I like it this way, trails of an adventure as it reaches back to its resting spot post the roaring saga, ready for a proper bath to look forward to our next adventure together! And with that, the curtain drops! Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.
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BLR to Sriharikota in my beloved Porsche Macan to catch the ISRO launch
