The WildWanderer: May 2016

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.