The WildWanderer: Fort

Friday, 30 September 2016

Bike ride and Trek to Kothaligad, Peth cha killa

Greetings..!!!

September is ending, Monsoons are about to vanish for this year, but it seemed to be july, coz of incessant rains.

Our plan for Prabalgad Night Camping was poured down by rain, so decided to go for a One day trek.

After going through various options, Peth, Kothaligad was finalized.

Last visited in 1994 when i was a kid, memories ran down giving a glimpse of all the scenic beauty around Kothaligad and our experience over it.

Since the transportation is very less going towards Ambivali (Base of Peth, Kothaligad) we decided to do a Bike ride.

Me, Nilesh and Jay chalked out a plan and Nilesh shared it with his office colleagues. So in total of 13 participants we met on Sunday morning, 25^th September at Lal chowki temple, Kalyan.

We were so pleased and thanked God for taking rest after raining for 4 consecutive days. But our happiness was shortlived.

As soon as we started by 8.30, again Rain, heavy rains that drenched us even before reaching Ambarnath... but later the weather was so pleasant... it made our ride smooth.

We halted for breakfast at Neral. And moved on...

Going ahead to Kashele where the routes divert. This is the point where you need to cross check again for route from locals.

Straight road goes to Kothimbe – Ambivali –Jamrung (Our destined route)

The North west turn goes to Khandas for Bhimashankar

The Right goes towards Karjat

So we moved on our route with so many twists and turns. We spotted a small mountain on our right, which was covered under clouds and made sure it was KOTHALIGAD.

We parked our vehicles, booked for Lunch and started our trek by 12noon.

We were already running behind schedule, but the scenic beauty of the post monsoons greeted us.

Walking at own good speed, the Selfie queen kept on delaying our schedule.

The other group members were frustrated by this, but cant help, we have to be in group.

So i asked nilesh to move ahead and carry them along.

Within 1 hour of walking, we reached the plateau that gave us an enormous view of the entire kothaligad and Jambrung village with Kothaligad engulfed in clouds.

Mere Do anmol Ratan

A small photo session and break of 5 minutes we continued with the walk. The path becomes more stable and within 15 minutes we were at Peth village.

Kothaligad engulfed in clouds

Flame Lily

Here you get a nice view of the fort. Moving through the actual trek starts. Amidst the jungle and steep climbs, it took us almost an hour to reach the top with both girls desperate to get some fresh air.

Exhausted Ladies

Finally we get to see the Bastion of the fort and the 1^st door.

Bastion

Bhairoba cha mandir

Visitng Bhairoba mandir, and cave started to move up through the stairs carved inside the mountain.

At some point you have to be careful as you may suffer Vertigo and can lose out on balance. The steps are quite a good 2 feet high.

steps carved

Rajdhani with Local train

to the left lies the Bhimashankar range and you get to see a wall of Waterfall over the Vajantri Ghat

Vajantri ghat Waterfall wall

Totally exhausted, the girls were just managing to climbup and finally reached the top.

The view here was breath taking. Forgetting about the tiring journey, Selfie queen started with her photo session. This spread a good laughter wave among all of us.

So we did a group photo session, some individual, solo pics among the flowers. Realizing that we spent more than 40 minutes in clicking photographs, Now was the time to hurry up with the decend.

That was a challenging part for me as i had to stay with the girls.

Looking at my frustration, Manisha said, “Rajdhani ko Local trains k peeche aana pad raha hai”

It took us quite some time to get to peth village as It was manisha’s turn as her legs were shivering and she was continuously scared by a dog who was following us (Helping us)

After Peth village, our selfie queen was in her own world with paining toes, that she totally forgot that we had come for a trek in a group and did it only with 4 people.

Other moved quickly and already Finished with their lunch at 5pm.

Bidding goodbye to the group we waited for the girls to get normal and started our journey back by 6. Within minutes it was dark and we missed a turn and went straight onto Karjat road, taking a U turn we reached Kashele and continuing onwards to Neral and Kalyan.

Luckily we did not get traffic and the day was spent with most amazing memories.

Thanks for accompanying with me here on BLOG, hope to see you soon on another TREK.

Adios, good bye till next trexperience.....

Regards,

Sumya – A wandering trekker

Monday, 30 May 2016

Night Trek and Camping at Mrugagad, Khopoli

Greetings fellow Readers,

Its been long time I took to write, but was waiting for some super exciting visit.

It happened last week, my buddy Nilesh Kambli was getting bored sitting at home and even I had to postpone some event due to some reason.

So… we were free to move out. We called up Shraddhesh Jadhav, our friend, partner and guide for this trek.

It was 21^st May, the entire day went hectic with loads of work. What kept us alive was Full moon night.

Since Shraddhesh was to come from Office and that too from Borivali, we had to postpone our timings. After coordination, we decided to meet at “Shree Duttguru snacks, Panvel”

But as I reached early, I took a glimpse of the food available at the stores, unfortunately, these stores close down by 10-10.30 so the only food available is the leftover.

Another reason being upcoming stalls of Chinese food at tea centres.

So we decided to move on and took the Khopoli road… it was almost 9.30pm

The Ride was just incomparable, No Traffic, super clean road, and cool breeze.

We stopped at Chouk Phata. The road here diverts to different location, Left goes to Matheran/ Karjat and straight goes to Pune.

After having “Bhurji Pav and Garma garam Cutting” we moved onto our destination

The road was so smooth we didn’t recognize we were riding @ flat 70kmph.

While on Khopoli Pali road, we had to take a Left for Jambhulpada.

Initial road was very patchy and gave us the feel of OFF-ROAD riding.

The full moon was our Guiding star.

Suddenly Shraddhesh had an Headon collision with a grasshopper. (Hahahahaha)

That gave us an opportunity to stop for a while and we gazed the beautiful moon and stars around for sometime.

One can never get this feeling….. even if you stay in Bungalow worth crores.

Finally reached the base of Mrugagad – Bhelivsave Gaav

It was almost midnight. Parked our bikes and started our search for the Route.

“Durgveer Pratishthan – Seveche Thaai Tatpar, Durgveer Nirantar”

The direction board set up by Durgveer Pratishthan

It is basically a Voluntary group of similar thinking people who strive hard for Preservation and conservation of FORTS of Maharashtra.

This group visits villages around the Forts and conduct Social, Cultural and Educational sessions providing indepth knowledge of the Fort and its importance so that they may extend their helping hand as much as possible.

Nice work Guys….

We found some Boards and arrow marking made by volunteers that took us into a dense forest,

Little moonlight reaching the ground, weird sounds of insects, and specially the horrifying sound of dry leaves being cracked under our feet….. such moments just take your breath away.

With some tricky twists and turns… we neared the top of the fort within an hour.

Now the challenge lies to climb the steep stairs carved in the rocks.

Somehow managed to reach the top and lay down for sometime relaxing with the cool breeze and gazing the lightened Bhelivsave village below.

the little lightened Bhelivsave Village

Opened up the tent, bolted the ends and put our bags in….

Tent set up

Shraddhesh checking the Space available

Nilesh took out his Nikon, and I took out my Canon (Cameras) and started experimenting on clicking pictures here and there.

Full Moon on the night of Buddha Pournima

Finally, at 3am we decided to call off the day.

tiny little mountains hid under morning Fog

Next morning we woke up at around 6 am….. and waited for Durgveer volunteers to arrive. Small portion of cisterns are yet to be cleaned before monsoons.

We were out of Water and had to wait for them.