Jay Shivaji! Jay Bhawani! Jay Maharashtra!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for making you wait guys, was a bit busy today

The Idea behind visiting the place - -

Well as everyone knows, it was a long weekend at the end of Feb '10. 27th Feb '10 was spent with Bluevolt and 28th was Holi. So it was spent with my family. 1st March was Rang panchmi. Every year I play rang panchmi with my friends but this year, I dont know why, I wasn't keen to play holi. Even my friends wanted go out somewhere on that day. Initially we had decided to go to Harnai beach by my friend's car. Everything was well planned and then at 11 o clock of 28th Feb another friend calls up and shows interest in the picnic. Now 6 guys in a Zen seemed uncomfortable and we started thinking of other options.

Finally after some discussion we decided to use our bikes - 6 riders, 3 bikes! Umesh and I have roamed quite a lot on bikes and are comfortable with long distance rides but the Platina rider - Prathamesh - had never been for a long ride before. You can say it was his debut that day Therefore we canceled our plan for Harnai and decided to go somewhere near by to spoil prathamesh by giving him a taste of two wheel touring. Now when it comes to near by ride, the first name that pops up in the mind is Amby Valley But I had had enough of this amby stuff. Also the roads aren't in a great condition these day at amby. So it was a big NO from my side for amby.

Since everyone of us loves trekking, we decided to go to Lohagad. There's a new TV show being aired these days on marathi channel called as Discover Maharashtra. The anchor Milind Gunaji roams around in Maharashtra exploring all the forts and mountains. Recently he had been to Lohagad and I had seen that episode. Therefore I had clear idea of what to expect on the fort and what not. Our main aim was to spend the day together out of Mumbai, do some trekking and explore the fort.

So the answer to most of the biker friends here as to why I chose this destination at this time of the year is - coz of Prathamesh. Didn't want to take him too far and didn't want to visit amby either. Am not a fan of Alibaug and Murud, so didn't even think of it. And if one wants to enjoy trekking this seems to be good time because in monsoon everything becomes slippery and more risky. And we ain't professional trekkers

The ride - -

Well so the plan was changed and we were heading towards Lohagad on 1st March. The night before I was happy that am going to spoil one more friend tomorrow by introducing him to bike touring but I was unaware that it's going to a torture next day a sweet torture

We all gathered at Shivaji Park at 5 am on 1st March. Everyone was on time and we started off within next 10-15 minutes after giving prathamesh some tips about highway riding. Umesh and I had anyways decided to ride slowly and in a way escort Prathamesh's Platina. Well... it sounds cool on paper but someone who has been riding R15 for couple of years and who's natural cruising speed is always in 80-110kmph bracket - it's a TORTURE!!!!! Worst than 3rd degree hehe.

It took us a lot of time to reach even Palm beach road because he wasn't even crossing 60kmph Buy we had no choice but to be cool with it as it was quite understandable and necessary. He was riding a Platina and that for the first time as a tourer. Even though we were bloody pissed off riding at 55-60kmph till Palm beach we had no choice but to keep a smile on our faces to boost his confidence. My bike was literally crying..hehe.

Our first break was at Panvel McD for breakfast.





While we were having our breakfast, The winner of Roadies 6 - Noman came in and what ever little crowd that was there started shouting n all.. We all were like Anyways...

We finished the breakfast and hit the JNPT road. Just a few kms ahead stopped for a couple of more photographs.

Sunrise



Once done with that, we started riding and with couple of butt breaks here n there managed to reach Mumbai Pune Expressway entrance. We were glad that the Platina didn't pose any problems. Next up was some more posing





Before leaving the place we gave Prathamesh some more tips about the expressway as it's quite infamous for the oil on the road, cross wind and high speed vehicles. We crossed the expressway without any problem and were closing in towards Lonavla. For the first time even ST buses were overtaking us all thanks to Prathamesh and his Platina..hehe. The 60kmph tourer

I was a bit confused with the route and hence preferred asking for directions. The directions were pretty simple for me as all I had to do was keep heading towards Pavana lake and take the left turn just before the khind(narrow road passing between 2 small mountain walls). I had been to Pavana lake and therefore had no trouble finding the way.

The road was quite narrow and hence riding carefully we reached the Lohagad fata and waited for everyone to arrive. We were told that the road from this point till the base of Lohagad is not in a great condition but it's quite ok. And we could see that right from the start of the road. Initially it was just a kaccha road with gravel on it - a lot of gravel. A nightmare for R15!!! Also it's quite steep. Slowly the road became worst from bad. It had all the ingredients for a wonderful slow speed crash/fall - steep climb, gravel, huge loose rocks, potholes, very sharp turns, stray animals, etc etc.. I was worried for Prathamesh and his platina but surprisingly and fortunately everyone did well and we managed to cross that patch of road(it can't be called a road actually) and reached the base of Lohagad. Found a nice dhaba cum hotel and parked our bikes securely. Ordered nice n hot Kandapohe for everyone and took some rest.



A couple of pics of the Fort from the base before we started to climb.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

After getting some rest and food we all were refreshed and ready for the climb.
The board showing the route and map of the Fort


Some more pics at the start of the climb




After climbing for sometime





Pavna Lake in the background



That's the Visapur fort in the background





The first entrance - Ganesh Darwaja




The other side of the Entrance






There was a small dark room under one of the fort walls which was used as storage and to keep an eye on the surroundings





After crossing a huge water tank and a lot steps on the zig zag way we came across another entrance. Dont remember the exact name but I think it was called as the Mahadarwaja.








And we keep moving ahead...



Kille Visapur



After sometime we came across this thing.. The toilet of that era










A small Masjid near the top of the Fort


Finally we reach the Top of the Fort


Most of the guys were down on energy by now but we insisted on continuing and started moving towards the other end of the Fort. On the other end or rather the west end of the fort has a fortification called as Vinchukata(Scorpion tail). It was used to keep an eye on the oncoming enemy. To reach the very end of vinchukata was the real fun. Some real tough terrain and trekking was needed. Also there were lot of monkeys and the local villagers told us about some 3-4 kinds of snakes found abundantly on the fort.







Some wild flower


After crossing the tough terrain we reached the very end of the Vinchukata. Aah it was some feeling..superb! We didn't want to take any chance of someone falling down and getting hurt on the trek and therefore didn't click any pics while going there. But we did it while coming back

The entire group at Vinchukata


A distant Temple


Totally exhausted


Don't remember what was I saying..




After spending some time in the cool breeze we started the return journey.
This is what we have to climb to get to the other side









Yohoo..and finally we did it safely


A long shot of the Vinchukata



The rest of the downhill journey was pretty fast and sort of boring. By the time we started the return journey lot of people had started coming. Lucky we managed to explore the fort in relatively crowd free condition.

Once at the hotel at the base, we literally slept in those chairs for sometime. Had a nice glass of Kokam juice and packed our stuff. It was time to hit the road again. Lying ahead was the bad road. Finding our way through it just as we reached the end of the bad patch, where there's max amount of gravel, we found a couple fallen down from their Activa. We pulled over and helped them get up.

Later we reached Lonavla and had our lunch at Hotel Annapurna. Very nice food at reasonable rates. After half n hour or so we started the ride and cruising at the same 60 kmph speed kept moving towards Mumbai. Taking couple of butt breaks in between we reached Panvel safely. Via Palm beach road we reached Dadar safely by 6 pm.

A day well spent. No crash, no mishap! wohoo..! Besides we did what we love to do the most. And I was happier than the rest because I was successful in infecting Prathamesh with the two wheel touring and he's soon gonna buy a Zma R for his future tours. yippee!