Trekking and walking in the woods has been my ideal destressing mechanisms, being religiously followed at-least 4 times a year. An element of discomfort was creeping in my psyche. It was more than 12 months and no trekking done, the year 2010 already gearing up closing it's calendar with joyful blasting chritsmas holidays round the corner. Didn't knew what to do. My regular trekking companions were in Australia, enjoying their daughters graduation ceremony.
I got a surprise call from my swimming acquaintance, Sushmit Lahiri, a young athlete and footballer. Seeking my availability for the saturday (18/12/2010), for a trek. This was an opportunity i could not have missed and jumped on to details of the trek. We were on our preparations friday evening picking up bread, cheese, biscuits, water, lemon for the trek.
We decided to ride to the foothills at Dhodani village on my Bullet, which was also roaring to go. I had the bike serviced and ready the previous week itself, as a part of my standard SOP of keeping the machine ever ready.
Our journey started with a kick of my 350cc bike at 06:15 hrs . With a backpack with each of us, the ride started from the misty lanes of Sector -9 CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai. We encountered morning walkers enjoying the early morning chill at CBD Belapur, the chill had been little unusual for Navi Mumbai, with the temperature dropping to 15 degrees Celsius.
We hit the Mumbai Pune highway in 5 minutes, the bike was balanced with the pillion rider and roared towards panvel. After taking right turn from the kalamboli junction, we entered a fuel station to top up the tank, this fuel station being out of the octroi limits, has cheaper fuel compared to the Mumbai & Navi Mumbai. Topped up we started again, on the busy highway till the junction of New Panvel. We took a left turn towards the new panvel and said a good bye to the Pune higway. This part of town was still sleepy, we zoomed out of new panvel started moving towards, chiple and sukhapur. Heavy development could be seen with big construction houses involved in the housing and commercial projects.
Once out of New Panvel, we could now feel two differences, one the roads became narrow, feel was rural and could see the outlines of the shahyadri ranges, where we intended to do our trek. Almost 3 Kms from the new panvel we saw a smokey lake as if enjoying the chill and complementing the sun for the early morning tea. We took a short video of location and moved further. As inched closer to our destination , village Dhodhani, we saw another lake full of white flower, we halted to confirm our directions with the locals. We were happy to know that we were on the right path. We touched the base village known as Dhodhani, just at the foot of the hill Matheran. Visiting this village always reminded me of the advantages they live in, with fresh air, moderate temperatures and natural surroundings; a dream to live on.
As we enter the village, met our old acquaintance. Asked him for safe parking of the bike. He was more than happy to have us there, showed us a corner and we parked our bike, settled down with a pack of biscuits and hot cup of black tea. Surprisingly the black tea has been always very tasty at this location.
Preparations for climbing up included removing our external jacket. Adjusting our rucksacks. Taking out the walking stick, Tightening the shoe laces. We navigated our way through the village and were out climbing first leg of hill at 8:20 hrs. The sun was still soft and kind towards us, however the first steep climb did give us the glimpse of further journey.
I have been very fond of this trekking track up on Matheran hills and have been doing this almost annually. Very effective track to loosen your joints and preparing you for tougher treks.
The first leg of climb made us little breathless but this hill and our breathlessness disappeared in the second range which had good green cover. This took us up further and we landed at a small unattended temple. Took some sip of water. My friend lahiri was already ahead eager to conquer the cliff.
Breath taking view of the sunset point of Matheran was visible from this location. The next climb was a steep one, we had to climb a vertical cliff. Short and sharp zig zag paths very taking us high &high. Narrow but well identified tracks were our companions other than once in a while some locals going up and down.
Touched the peak and entered Maheran ranges at 10:20 hrs, sushmith lahiri was already on with snacks. We moved around the cliff, located an edge and settled for our bread jam cheese sandwich. Relishing taste. It was tasting much better than other regular days. Other than two of us we had the company of huge trees and shrubs on the edges with strong breeze making a loud sound as if they were the voice of matheran and telling us to keep the area clean and behave responsibly. We did exactly as expected, we took all our trash in our ruck sack and decided to move towards the market area of Matheran. It was a cool 4 kms to and fro walk in the company of 15-20feet tall trees. The moment we reached the market place, all the peace of Matheran was seen and heard shattering as the day was progressing and tourists oozing out on lanes and bylanes of the hill town market. Ponies and horses demonstrating their presence by making all sorts of noise as if competing with the intruders (tourists). Personally I have never liked to spend time in the market area. Which has all the characteristics of a Hat Bazaar.
One thing i have always loved is loafing around the station, going through the train schedule and the upkeep of the toy trains. I had the opportunity to ride up the hill one time on this toy train, very fascinating but not more than walking up in the woods. Which explains my experience for toy train ride only being once. After some time we took a call amongst us to quit the market and start back.
I was also eager to get out of the entire noisy scenario, but still could not resist another black tea before we were on to the sunset point descending the hill. The time was 12:30pm. As usual the climb was very relishing as we were going down with the memories of a successful climb. We did promise ourselves to do more treks than what we were maintaining till now.
Returned and retired for the day after a heavy meal at home relishing the tiredness of every muscle of the body.
I got a surprise call from my swimming acquaintance, Sushmit Lahiri, a young athlete and footballer. Seeking my availability for the saturday (18/12/2010), for a trek. This was an opportunity i could not have missed and jumped on to details of the trek. We were on our preparations friday evening picking up bread, cheese, biscuits, water, lemon for the trek.
We decided to ride to the foothills at Dhodani village on my Bullet, which was also roaring to go. I had the bike serviced and ready the previous week itself, as a part of my standard SOP of keeping the machine ever ready.
Our journey started with a kick of my 350cc bike at 06:15 hrs . With a backpack with each of us, the ride started from the misty lanes of Sector -9 CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai. We encountered morning walkers enjoying the early morning chill at CBD Belapur, the chill had been little unusual for Navi Mumbai, with the temperature dropping to 15 degrees Celsius.
We hit the Mumbai Pune highway in 5 minutes, the bike was balanced with the pillion rider and roared towards panvel. After taking right turn from the kalamboli junction, we entered a fuel station to top up the tank, this fuel station being out of the octroi limits, has cheaper fuel compared to the Mumbai & Navi Mumbai. Topped up we started again, on the busy highway till the junction of New Panvel. We took a left turn towards the new panvel and said a good bye to the Pune higway. This part of town was still sleepy, we zoomed out of new panvel started moving towards, chiple and sukhapur. Heavy development could be seen with big construction houses involved in the housing and commercial projects.
Once out of New Panvel, we could now feel two differences, one the roads became narrow, feel was rural and could see the outlines of the shahyadri ranges, where we intended to do our trek. Almost 3 Kms from the new panvel we saw a smokey lake as if enjoying the chill and complementing the sun for the early morning tea. We took a short video of location and moved further. As inched closer to our destination , village Dhodhani, we saw another lake full of white flower, we halted to confirm our directions with the locals. We were happy to know that we were on the right path. We touched the base village known as Dhodhani, just at the foot of the hill Matheran. Visiting this village always reminded me of the advantages they live in, with fresh air, moderate temperatures and natural surroundings; a dream to live on.
As we enter the village, met our old acquaintance. Asked him for safe parking of the bike. He was more than happy to have us there, showed us a corner and we parked our bike, settled down with a pack of biscuits and hot cup of black tea. Surprisingly the black tea has been always very tasty at this location.
Preparations for climbing up included removing our external jacket. Adjusting our rucksacks. Taking out the walking stick, Tightening the shoe laces. We navigated our way through the village and were out climbing first leg of hill at 8:20 hrs. The sun was still soft and kind towards us, however the first steep climb did give us the glimpse of further journey.
I have been very fond of this trekking track up on Matheran hills and have been doing this almost annually. Very effective track to loosen your joints and preparing you for tougher treks.
The first leg of climb made us little breathless but this hill and our breathlessness disappeared in the second range which had good green cover. This took us up further and we landed at a small unattended temple. Took some sip of water. My friend lahiri was already ahead eager to conquer the cliff.
Breath taking view of the sunset point of Matheran was visible from this location. The next climb was a steep one, we had to climb a vertical cliff. Short and sharp zig zag paths very taking us high &high. Narrow but well identified tracks were our companions other than once in a while some locals going up and down.
Touched the peak and entered Maheran ranges at 10:20 hrs, sushmith lahiri was already on with snacks. We moved around the cliff, located an edge and settled for our bread jam cheese sandwich. Relishing taste. It was tasting much better than other regular days. Other than two of us we had the company of huge trees and shrubs on the edges with strong breeze making a loud sound as if they were the voice of matheran and telling us to keep the area clean and behave responsibly. We did exactly as expected, we took all our trash in our ruck sack and decided to move towards the market area of Matheran. It was a cool 4 kms to and fro walk in the company of 15-20feet tall trees. The moment we reached the market place, all the peace of Matheran was seen and heard shattering as the day was progressing and tourists oozing out on lanes and bylanes of the hill town market. Ponies and horses demonstrating their presence by making all sorts of noise as if competing with the intruders (tourists). Personally I have never liked to spend time in the market area. Which has all the characteristics of a Hat Bazaar.
One thing i have always loved is loafing around the station, going through the train schedule and the upkeep of the toy trains. I had the opportunity to ride up the hill one time on this toy train, very fascinating but not more than walking up in the woods. Which explains my experience for toy train ride only being once. After some time we took a call amongst us to quit the market and start back.
I was also eager to get out of the entire noisy scenario, but still could not resist another black tea before we were on to the sunset point descending the hill. The time was 12:30pm. As usual the climb was very relishing as we were going down with the memories of a successful climb. We did promise ourselves to do more treks than what we were maintaining till now.
Returned and retired for the day after a heavy meal at home relishing the tiredness of every muscle of the body.
