Travel notes: Sinhagad - Panshet - Almost Raigad

One of the best parts about living in Pune is the excellent weather. And the bestest part about it is the plethora of choices in places to visit over the weekends or holidays that it offers. You want to trek, go cycling, biking, long drive, swim, adventure sports – you name it and Pune and the surrounds will offer you. Rainy season accentuates the beauty several notches more.

My Royal Enfield Desert Storm was craving for some taste of the mountain green. I had done two Pune – Mumbai – Pune trips on my ‘Storm’ but that’s about the exposure it had to the mist. So this one Saturday I decided to take it for a climb. And climb it literally was - 1312 meters above sea level (Pune is 560)

Joseph and me started early morning at 7.30 and rode towards Sinhagad. My car was my carrier the last time around I went to Sinhagad and this time it was the storm and boy the difference was telling. The power of the 500 cc engine just dragged us like a bison. Our plan was to ride via Khed – Shivapur while ascending and descend via the Khadakwasla route. I had used the Khed – Shivapur route before so was quite confident of the way.

The morning chill made the ride very pleasant. We were barely out of Katraj that my wallet somehow slipped out of the shorts and spilled all my money and cards and receipts on the road. Joseph and I spent some 15 minutes in the careful re-collection of my wallet residents. Careful, I say because there was continuous flow of cars and bikes on both directions. Some cars even stopped but left as soon as they realized that this wasn’t a shower of money.

We reached the base of the fort in about an hour. It had been ages since I saw a rainbow piercing the clouds but from here we spotted a beautiful Rainbow emerging from the mountain and travelling through the clouds. I was carrying my camera and it was a perfect moment for my 1^st capture of the day. We could see the Khadakwasla dam at a distance and the view was just breathtaking. The sky was clear and the fog hadn’t taken us captive yet.

We wandered around clicking the various historic corners of the fort including Lokmanya Tilak’s Bungalow – this bungalow that has had visitors including Gandhiji during the freedom struggle, Shivaji’s Brave Lieutenant - Tanaji Malusare’s tomb, various small temples, Kalyan Darwaza etc. Joseph was my model who added essence to my clicks of the fort area. His ability to pose so effortlessly can be matched only by Mamooty in his Mundu Vesti ;-). We spent some nice, meditatingly calm moments in the far end of the fort where there were no visitors when we reached. I absolutely loved this side of the fort. We had some Bhajiya and Chai from one of the many eateries – managed by the villagers and headed down to Khadakwasla.

The road to Khadakwasla is absolutely under maintained - Rocky all the way and extremely steep. It was fun to ride here though. There were some stretches where I didn’t even have to use the gears except the Bike’s neutral gear and the bikes brakes helped me wade through the rocky road. This road is mostly used by trekkers and there is considerable amount of bikes and cars plying through this path to the fort. Khed – Shivapur road isn’t that famous and hence free from traffic and ironically those roads were better maintained.

As we crossed the Sinhagad forest area and were approaching Khadakwasla Dam, we noticed that Panshet is about 25km’s to the left. So we changed the plan and rode towards Panshet. We decided to visit Khadakwasla on the way back. Some 4 km’s ahead we saw that Rajgad is about 30 km’s to the left off the road towards Panshet. So we decided to cover Rajgad as well that same day. The day just got a little more exciting. Road to Panshet is well maintained and since it runs parallel to the river it had beautiful places to take halts. We nevertheless fought the intermittent rains and reached Panshet in like no time. To our surprise the place was extremely well maintained with good water sports facilities, a few decent restaurants overlooking the lake, children play area and ample space for family picnickers to put down their blankets and food basket. We spent some time here, clicked some pictures and then rode to see Rajgad.

I knew that Rajgad will not be like Sinhagad, as in we won’t be able to ride all the way to the fort. There would be a bit of trekking and we didn’t have time for that. But Joseph was so immersed in the beauty of the Greens and Blues and intermittent whites that he was difficult to convince. So we rode towards Rajgad. We passed a few villages and some bad patches of road – so bad that some cars just decided to revert back from there – no jokes – later we found that all were lady drivers (I aint implying anything here). We were crossing a mountain which we thought will lead us directly to Rajgad however to our dismay Rajgad’s base village was 20 km’s from there. That spiraling road and the surrounding mountains were absolutely mind-blasting (Russell Peter types). We decided to click some pictures and spend some time there – letting ourselves free. Absolute Bliss!! If only we could have had the liberty to release some Holstein Friesian Cows in the meadows and make some European style cottages and serve some cheese and chocolates, voila! We would be in Switzerland. It was so beautiful.

We were here for about half an hour and we didn’t have even one car pass us; just one herd of cows and the cowboy. I tried my macro skills and took some pictures which made me feel good. Hope you like them too. Its here Joseph took a picture of mine with my desert storm (first pic at the start of the blog) that I believe is one of my best so far. Thanks Josie!!

Coming down was tricky as it was continuously raining, the visibility was low and the bad patches were kind of disorienting my bike to perpendiculars. But I managed to get Joseph to SafetyJ. Khadakwasla Dam was very crowded. Punekars call it the chowpatty of Pune. I heaved a sigh of relief that we went to Panshet and almost Rajgad and didn’t waste our afternoon in Khadakwasla. But for the fact that we were there I clicked some pictures and off we left towards NH4 via the Sinhagad road and headed back to Koregaon Park.

By 6.30 we were home. Imagine such a good ride, so many awesome places, wonderful clicks, meditating silence surrounded by the mountains all in half the days distance.

Pune - Kass Plateau – Thoseghar waterfalls – Sajjandad – Pune will be next on 2^nd October 2012.