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Published: February 17th 2010
We started our journey early morning at 3 am towards Saputara which is around 260 kms from mumbai. We reached Nashik by 6:30 am through early morning open road. We diverted to Saputara road which goes via Vani and reached by 9:00 am.
Saputara is a nice hill station place for weekend family trip. The enterence of the hill station has boating and ropeway call you or welcoming you. We did only Boating and Ropeway and visited the museum. Museum have things showing local tradition. There should be a guide or Light and sound show. Other things which you can do in addition to this is the Jain Temple, Horse/Toybike riding or buying some tribal arts like letter box, night lamp etc. In respect to tribal arts i found this place very similar to Jawhar which is also a small hillstation in Thane, Maharashtra.
By lunch time we were done for the place and were looking for other interesting things nearby. We found that mahal forest, fort, botinical garden, vasanda national park,water fall were nearby places of interest. As last 3 things were falling in same route we ignored mahal forest and left for botinical garden at waghai. It
was at 50 kms distance from saputara.
In 15 minutes we were on the road towards Waghai. The road seems one suitable only for day travel although we saw some villages in between and quite some loded trucks pass through. Road is in Work in progress stage over the spoilt one. I think the road should get over by July 2010. It is very very similar to wada-suryamal-mokhada road where it passes though dense forest through hilly terrain. It also has river view on the one side of the road for around 20 kms. 5 kms before waghai there is a left turn which took us to a water fall. As its no rainy season there was no waterfall but lake was a good sight.
Botanical garden at Waghai had free entry. It had some medicinal plants,roses, palm tress, spices plants and small garden. I dont know when it was built but looked it was built recently. There should be guides who explain all about it. Or atleast a light and sound show which conveys the reason for its existance. The vasanda national park is just 2 kms away from botinical garden. As our car had some problem
we asked the tea stall guy outside the garden to arrange for a jeep for vasanda national park. The jeep came in 10 minutes, and we were soon at the enterence of the Vasanda national park. We saw some spoted dears, peacocks, bats and monkeys. Doing some walk in jungle trail is essential if you want to spot any animals. In the splutter of jeep all the bird calls are lost. Although, saputara is a suitable for family trip, this extension of waghai and vasanda is only for travel enthusiasts. For others its less of entertainment. May be in coming years there is better development at waghai. But ya, its worth visiting here as one get to see waterfalls, botanical garden and national park in just 50 kms away from saputara. By 5:30 we were done and we started the back drive towards sauptara. Also a work of caution about Vasanda National park is it no where comparable to Bandhavgad,Kanha,Gir NPs. I found even Nagzira near nagpur better than Vasanda.
Next day morning we were ready for downhill climb and were planing to visit ozar bet which had island and boating. But we droped the plan and decided to
go to Bhandardara dam. Before that we visited to Sula winery in Nashik. Its on Gangapur dam road and midist the grapes farms. Then we headed to Bhandardara which is around 70 kms from Nashik.
Bhandardara has a garden near the dam gates. Watching the water fall from the dam gates subsided our tiredness and drowsyness of noon time. Also did boating in dam which we luckly found out.
This trip was like 2 days divided into 4 places Saputara,Waghai,Nashik,Bhandardara. Its very fast journey by any means. But thats how i prefer it. Having variety in a single dish.
Also i feeling the difference in my hand and eyes while typing this story so i am sure i am rejunevated during these 2 days.
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S Roy Biswas
non-member comment
Nice -
A nice blog.