Haha! Those 5 hours to Naran! Guess it took us 7.5 hours to get back although essentially the pace seemed quite similar from what I remember and traffic and nightime driving were the only key differences (Doc obviously does not have the word driver fatique in his vocab, being our "Mad Max"). The Mansehra return stretch was clogged with trucks and probably slowed us down by 30-45 mins. But the rest was definately nighttime driving with significant traffic throughout the route.
That said, on the morning run, I remember NN dropped the NPP in 5th gear once we took the Hasan Abdal turn and thats essentialy where it stayed until we got close to Naran. The NPP would even pick up from below 60kmph in fifth to complete overtakes on inclines comfortably and we maintained a steady pace through the small towns in the morning. The stretch approaching Naran did cause some delays with bad road condition and frequent one way traffic sections....
