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Published: July 28th 2009
Nov-29: The plan was for 10 trekkers to meet at Pimple Saudagar at 6.30 sharp and as I expected, no one arrived there at 6.30 am. After waiting for few more minutes, Kaustaubh gave me a call to inform that he has started from the home and will reach in few minutes. Salil arrived before Kaustaubh, and few minutes later, the entire team of trekkers gathered. It was 7.00 am in the morning.We quickly re-distributed our luggage, while having a hot cup of tea at my home and by 7.30 am we were all set to go for our long talked and long awaited trek to Jivdhan and Naneghat.
We started with me-Anand, Salil-Anil, Kaustubh-Srini, Murtaza-Bhupendra, Sunil-Rakesh paired on a bike.
It wasn’t a sunny morning, and there was a little shower of rain, just a day before. Being a winter season, and experiencing last three days of cold in Pune, we had expected it to be very very cold while driving. But to surprise us, although it was cold, it was only to make us pleasant and make our driving journey beautiful and enjoyable. Starting from Pimple Saudgar till we reached to the last spot of our trek,
Trekkers
The groupwe never saw the Sun.
Drive from Pimple Saudagar to Narayangaon, which we clearly new the route and everyone followed the first bike to reach there. The road did not have much traffic this morning, otherwise generally this is a crowded road with lot of traffic. The wind was flowing so fast that we were hardly able to come to the topmost speed of our bikes and used to shake our bikes in between. But the determined guys, never stopped and never complained, they just continued. From Naryangaon onwards to go towards Junnar, one has to pass from within the narrow lanes of Narayangoan for less than a kilometer and then comes a beautiful road, with lush green farms and trees on either sides of the road. As we started coming closer to Junnar, we could see the fort Shivnery. Shivnery is so beautiful and attractive that a trekker wouldn’t be able to resist himself from making a note that he will come there next time. We reached to the bottom of Shivnery at 10.30 am. It was foggy and raining a little at that time and we were wondering whether it will continue to rain with worried minds.
Jivdhan
Jivdhan Fort At the bottom of Shivnery, we all had a breakfast break at Hotel “Aashiyana”. It is Kaustubh’s uncle’s hotel. They serve “kolhapury-misal” along with other dishes. And it was a real kolhapuri misal in true sense, enough spicy to make us sweat. At this place we enquired, whether we will get any food material, once we leave for Ghatghar and the answer was negative. So, it was time for us to do our remaining shopping for the dinner. We bought some eggs, onions, tomatoes and bread here in the local bazaar. Few local people told us that if it’s raining here in Junnar, then it must be raining heavily in Naneghat. There was a moment of fear for all of us as we had a lot of luggage, sleeping material and almost no one had space for extra clothes and the rain would have made our climb difficult with all this.
We must have left Junnar at around 11.30 am for Ghatghar, leaving all our fears and worries aside. As we passed on, the rain vanished, but next came a road which was full with big stones and rocks all the way. First we thought that it must
Tired
Tired boys giving pose for a photo - :) be small bad patch, but it never ended. The only vehicles that can be seen on this route are Jeeps, and S.T buses (even they can be found rarely) Although it was not a comfortable drive, the experience was good, we were surrounded by hills from all our sides, green farms and a few people watching us and wondering where this team was going. It wasn’t windy but it was cold and pleasant. It was far away from the crowded roads and the pollution, full of “pure” air supply. The local people were giving us a reaction of wonder, and then we thought it was obvious, because everyone of us was fully covered from top of the head to the bottom of the feet, and the bikes were passing one after the other with just a few seconds gap.
Making our way through all these stones, sometimes by stopping and sometimes by asking a partner on the bike to walk for a small distance, we met our destination of base village-Ghatghar, it was 1.00 pm. It was still cold and foggy. We talked to a villager - Borade and enquired him for the way to Jivdhan fort and finally to reach Naneghat. He initially told us that the bikes can be taken till the caves of Naneghat. But we told him that we want to do a trek on Jivdhan and then want to climb down to Naneghat to make a night stay. He then let us park our bikes in front of his home and became ready to guide us for the trek. We left his home at 1.30 pm. We were seeing our target in front of us - the fort of Jivdhan.
We started walking now, everyone full of enthusiasm, eager to reach Naneghat, many members taking the snaps of almost everything. In few minutes only, were started seeing steep small road leading to some place (it was never visible to know where it ends), making its way through the small jungle trees. It wasn’t even 20% of our trek that Rakesh started cribbing - “Laxmikant, I cannot make it, it’s impossible, I can’t climb anymore, I think I have a cramp in my legs”. But since we have climbed some part, we knew that it was difficult for us to leave him there and at the same time it was also difficult to let him climb down. After a few minutes of stretching the leg, he started walking with us and to our surprise he never complained again. Some more time must have passed and now the turn was for another guy to give up, it was Sunil now - . “Mere pair kaanf rahe hai, I cannot walk or climb, plus meri sack muze picche khich rahi hai, aur sabse badi baat, muze height se dar lagta hai”, he literally started crawling from here. I assured him that I will make some arrangement in some time so that his sack is carried by our guide, but the guide was ahead and there was a big gap between him and a few who were with Sunil. We then continued convincing Sunil, and kept him walking (rather crawling) for some more time. Anand then came down to take his sack and then the sack was given to our guide.
By now everyone was tired to some amount, and has become more focused on finishing the trek, but the distance was not getting over. Again and again, everyone was asking, “aur kitna dur hai?” and then the guide or me used to reply “ bus aahi gaya, we can see the tip, can’t you!” And we knew, the thrilling part is yet to come - . After climbing up a little more, we now saw the rock patches, which we were supposed to climb. Climbing these patches has became easy nowadays, because the villagers have created the points on the rock, which provide you grips for the hands and legs to climb. We climbed two such rock patches, and everyone made it quite easily than expected. We used the nylon rope that we carried, for our luggage to climb. It was a new experience for all of them. And here on, they were all full of confidence for the rest of the trek. We were talking, it was hard but we made it, I never thought I will be able to make such a trek, wow, I liked it, it was amazing, now I am sure I can easily do a next trek, lets plan a trek once per week, once per month…….
And then walking for a little more, lead us to the warehouse “Dhanyache-Kothar”. Few of us reached there fast and rest were still on their way to reach this place. Anand and Salil explored this Kothar in detail and found that there were 4 rooms inside and were constructed in such a way that it was difficult to guess from outside that it’s so big inside.
Some people clicked some good photos here. We continued walking, we could see the top from here, it was hardly any distance from this point and hardly in few minutes, we were on the top. From here, on one side we could see the village (Ghatghar) from where we started and on the other side, we could see “Nanacha Angatha(thumb)” and Kalyan. Again even after reaching the top, we started talking about the distance which was yet to be covered. We thought it might take another two ours. After spending few minutes on the top, we started our climb down. We saw some water tanks on the way, they were full of water, and to our surprise, it was clean and cold water, some of us, put some water on their faces and eyes to make them fresh. Next was the climb down rock patch. I was the one who wanted to try it out first. I tried the typical rock-climbing but it was in vein. Typical technique of finding the grips and getting down vertically was of no use here. I could not find any grip after going down half the way, had no other option than climbing it again and come up. Borade-mama (our guide), now had to show us how to climb down. It was his experience which had taught him how to get down from there and everyone climbed down as per his instruction with the support of hands with minimum use of legs. While everyone was focused on understanding the grips, our photographer - Anil (who is interested taking his own snaps) was capturing some more interesting snaps. And when it was his turn to climb down he made sure that, when he was half way through, someone took his snap. We walked for some more distance and now we could see the most talked “Wanar-Lingi”. This is nothing but a hill which stands separated from others and stands very tall, all alone. The height must be around, 40-50 feet, and we were whispering, we were at the top and we had climbed that much. But yet the end of the hill was not over, we continued talking and walking, now, we could see the jungle at the bottom of the hill, and we were passing through it making our way down to the “Pathar(flat surface)” . Getting down was more tough than we thought, as it was through the jungle and required more of leg strength to control our bodies. It must have taken another hour for us to reach the pathar. We saw a construction going on the west side of this pathar, and then we were told that Milind Gunaji is constructing a hotel there. We were also told that, he has bought 40 acres of the land there and Varsha Usgaonkar has bought some. A quick thought struck my mind, in few years this place will be a commercial weekend spot. We must have walked another 30-40 minutes now, to reach our final destination of Naneghat Cave, collecting dry woods on our way. It was exactly 6.00 pm when we all reached the Cave which is just behind and below the Nanacha Angatha.
Everyone, looked at the cave, threw their luggage in and then relaxed. It must have been 10-15 minutes that we saw it getting dark. And it was totally dark in some time. We all were hungry now, (the thought of hunger had not even touched our minds, till we reached here. The only thought we had was when would we reach our destination-). We quickly boiled some water on the chulah (with the woods that we carried from jungle) and poured into ready to eat maggie-dubbas. We all finished our Maggie in almost no time. This was another relief. When done, we realized that we had finished almost all the drinking water - . Even then, we just sat there talking, talking about the today’s experience and then people sharing their experiences from the past from different locations. We spent an hour or so talking in front of that chulah cum camfire, and then when the topic of dinner came, Salil said, he met a guy on the pather and had found that he stays there all alone in a small hut and must be having some water and would definitely give us some. Four of us, started walking towards that hut, with two people holding the torches and rest just trying to find the way in that darkness. It was really difficult to find it but our gut feeling took us to his hut and he agreed to give us the water. It was another relief. After coming back, in some time, we cooked our food - only Egg Burji, and we all had a candle light dinner in the cave with Egg Burji and Paav around 9.00 pm. We continued our chatting for some more time to end our day with Salil’s beautiful songs of Jagjit Singh and some other miscellaneous ones.
We have to say that Salil has got the singing talent!! Some of us slept early and some, late. There was a different kind of music played by few of us who had already fallen asleep early around 10:30!! All of us must have slept around 12-12:30. We had a few good patches of sleep but there was also a fear that some wild snake or any other animal may give our suite a visit at night. In fact, we did get up and caught a rat which was having a feast of our dinner leftovers around 2-3 AM. But in general, it was good as there were no insects in the cave. People started waking up around 6 AM one by one and got finished with their daily routines. We then wrapped up, packed our bags and got some nice group photos at the end. We left the luxury suite around 8 am in the morning and headed to Ghatghar through the other route which passes through flat grounds. On the way, we saw an ancient toll booth where traders used to pay their toll while using the route. It was a big Ranjan(water pot like container) made of stone divided into two equal parts. The upper part can be opened when money is to be taken out from the container.
We reached Borde mama (our good old guide)’s home around 9 am in morning and had our tea and some other snacks shared by group members. Later we started our trip around 9:15 back to Junnar through the rough road with full of small stones. This time we reached quicker I think at Junnar at 10:30.
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Sunil
non-member comment
Its really so nice laxmikant :)