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. |
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.