Trek to Tandulwadi

A long break after our semester exams and all us were excited to do a trek as it was a moment of free time to disconnect ourselves from our monotonous schedule.

The trek plan were always discussed for weeks before they got executed, but this time it was different the plan was quickly discussed with participant hopping in and the execution started.

Destination selected was Tandulwadi and the date was December 29, 2016. We didn't lost the enthusiasm this time as in a single discussion the plan was finalized and we were ready to roll out the  discussed plan.

A total of seven members were ready and five members were so enthusiastic that they halted at a friend's house which comes on the way to trek spot. I and Neha boarded the Andheri-Virar train at 7:38 am  to join our other over excited members at Virar. From there we switched to boarded another train which dropped us at Saphale at 8:50am.

There are two modes to reach the base village first is the BUS and another AUTO-RICKSHAW. There are buses from that drop you to base village from the Saphale bus depot till 11:00 am at a interval of one hour each. We took the AUTO-RICKSHAW mode as we couldn't board the bus of 9:00 am as per our plan and waiting for another bus which at 10:00 am would cause unusual delay even before beginning our trek.

The TUM-TUM rickshaw had the perfect size to fit our group of odd numbered members of seven. The distance from Saphale station and our dropping point was approximately 7.5 Kms

Droppping point/Start Location Co-ordinates:  19.605621, 72.854852.

Route between Zilla Parishad school and gram panchayat office

The dropping point specified above is near Zilla parishad school. There is ample of parking space nearby base village and the base village is populated with many houses giving you a pleasant feeling as you pass by through their homes to your destination.

From co-ordinates 19.605621, 72.854852 start walking straight towards the lane that passes between  Zilla parishad school and Gram-Panchayat office. Few metres of the route passes through village followed by a big muddy water patch.

Muddy water patch

After crossing the water patch the trek trail route starts and there are no houses after this point so load yourself with sufficient amount of water storage as caves cistern water is not potable.

We started our trek at 9:30 am and reached peak point at 12:30 pm with 3 breaks in between each of around 10 minutes.

Trek route at beginning

Trek route at beginning

View after trekking a km distance

The first hour and a half of trek is very easy route making us feel like a walk in garden but later part was quite steep with rocky patches as found on river bed path. Once this rocky patches starts you would encounter a cave on your left side while ascending, The rocks to reach the cave have very little grip and thus ensure safety via ropes before you try reaching it.

Trek route with Rocky patches

Photo aside the cave

Its quite risky for beginners, we spent an hour to reach those caves and which had some photos over there, then descended back to our trek route to continue towards the peak point.

At peak point with Vaitarna river in background.

On reaching top you can see a view of Vaitarna river and some other interesting points.

View from peak point

After reaching near the entrance of fort there is a huge tree which provided us the cool shadow for a break, and so we planned our lunch venue over here between 2:15pm to 3:00pm by preparing fresh sandwiches and some kurkure eatable stuff we had. All of us were hungry after our breakfast session of 12:30pm.

We started descending at 1:20 pm from and reached the base village at 3:45pm and our train towards Virar from Saphale was at 4:09pm was not possible to board so we decided to spend a long time near the Zilla parishad school while waiting for our TUM-TUM auto which dropped us here in the morning.

We reached Saphale station at 5:15pm and had Tea,Lemon and Soda juices at nearby hotels and then boarded 6:09 pm Virar train from Saphale. At 6:40pm, after reaching Virar we all started our journey towards home thus finishing our first trek of this winter vacations.