Past week went with scanning wikimapia, reading Anand palande, hunting down and bookmarking and blacklisting blogs. On wikimapia while observing kusur plateau route, for finding Kusur village, my eye fell upon the ridge joining dhak to Deccan plateau, on moving a bit south I saw the edge of Deccan plateau overseeing Manjar Sumbha, dhak and Sandshi jungle below. “कसला view असेल!, असा विचार आला आणि नजर कामशेत जवळच्या जामभिवली कढे गेली” . Wikimapia was showing some trail connecting that edge with jambhivali village in the east. On further observing a bit southwest the same trail was connecting valvande village which is on northern bank of shirota lake. “ लगेच tube पेटली.” I remember that while coming to rajmachi from lonavala the dirt road divides in two, one goes to rajmachi, other to valvande village near shirota lake. मग काय! पटकन आनंद पाळंदेंच डोंगरयात्रा open करून route असल्याची खात्री करून घेतली. गुरू ला phone लावला. “मस्त ट्रेक” असल्याचा thumbs up मिळाला आणि अजून मस्त करण्या साठी inputs मिळाले.
Partner for this trek was Rajesh. बर्याच weekends पासून होय नाय होय नाय करत राजेश ह्या weekend आला होता. He met me at dombivli and we hopped into 5.44AM Khopoli local from Dombivli.
We took a auto rickshaw from karjat station to kondhane village. From the Rick I took a good look at mesmerising dhak, manjar sumbha, and entire songiri range.
When we started the walk from kondhane village, I heard it . गड गड धधाम ! The clouds started beating their drums. Then we heard it. Sound of rain somewhere far up. Rain in may, that too on a Trek. That too on kondhane route, that too a crowd less rainy day on a weekend on kondhane route! What else can you ask for. Although I am always prepared for rain, even on weekends, Rajesh wasn't! त्याने पटकन एका D-mart च्या छोट्या पिशवीत भला मोठा blanket कोंबला आणि 2.5 litre च्या दोन thumbs up च्या बाटल्या आणि तीं पिशवी हापिस bag मध्ये कोंबली. लेण्यां मध्ये ह्याची Repacking करू, असा करार झाला. आणि तसच केल, बाहेर पाऊस कोसळत होता, आणि आम्ही कोंढण्या च्या cave मध्ये समान काढून बसलो, repacking करायला, समोर डोंगर रांगेच्या मध्येच एक train ठाकूरवाडी halt ला थांबली होती. After Rajesh explored the caves, we were ready to go.
The rain was gone by the time we reached the lower plateau. The long trains climbing up through thakurwadi across the ulhas river were signalling with loud horn. I found the trail coming up from Mundhewadi village which could bypass the caves if taken. वाट मस्त मळलेली दिसली. मनाच्या checklist मध्ये लगेच add झाली.
We reached the rajmachi plateau pretty quickly and there they were the black ripe करवंद on thorny bushes . We started eating them until we could and went to the village.
We didn't wait much in the village and headed straight towards the godaneshwar temple and rested there for a while, soon realizing that it was impossible to rest the feet, whose mind wants to explore more! We walked towards south of the plateau on the edge.
Eyes could see as far as khandala, as well as the mighty ulhas valley thinking of which I still get goosebumps. It always takes me to that day when we were in it jumping from one rock to land on another.
We again came back to the temple and filled our bottles from the well, near it. It was time to leave rajmachi. We had enough time on our hands but rajmachi was a milestone of the trek, not the destination. Now we had to make our way to valvande. Then soon keeping one foot in front of another we started walking on the dirt road which takes us to lonavala. On the way Rajesh was adamant on getting one कच्चा आंबा down from the tree. After clearing the ground of the stones he managed to get two. First time in my life I ate a whole कैरी.
After a short distance the road started turning towards right. There is a bridge right at the turn, making way over a huge water stream which was dried in this month of may. ओढा पाहताच पोटात कुरकुर ऐकू आली. लगेच खाली उतरलो आणि मस्त bread, jam, अंडी असा lunch केला. plastic आणि इयर garbage went in our bags. I took a short nap at that place and started walking आरामसे after that. Now here is the catch. Immediately, after the turn, valvand village lies on the left side on the mountain range. While the dirt road goes a few kilometres ahead and take a sharp diversion left to reach that place, I knew that there was going to be a trail that cuts through the mountain on the left taking one directly on the road. A काका coming towards us with his cattle confirmed my अंदाझा and showed me the trail. Thanking him we started climbing. After about odd 100 metres up we were on the dirt road to valvand village. This small and village which lies on North of Shirota lake is surprisingly humble, despite its proximity to Rajmachi, where tourists flock on the weekends, it has a small closed school and a couple of temples behind 2 huge plastic water tanks, where I had planned to sleep at night.
We made dinner arrangements at Tukaram Umbre’s house and kids in the village invited us to play “किर्केट”. Cricket मध्ये bat, ball, runs, stump, जवळ जवळ एवढ्याच गोष्टींचं knowledge असलेला मी, मला चक्क captain बनवत होती ती भोळी पोरं. Ball समोर आल्यावर माझ reflex पळून जायचं , त्याला dodge करायचं. त्याला पकडायचा भानगडीत न पडणारा मी, आणि मलाच wicket keeper बनवलं गेलं.
After किरकेत we tried getting some mangoes off a tree with a kid, but we failed. Then I met an आजोबा who I knew was from Rajmachi village, he had come to stay there with his cattle as there was better hay and ample of water for the cattle. त्यांच्या गुरांकढे नजर गेली. जिथे त्यांना बांधल होते तिथे जमिनीवर सुक्या गवताला व शेणाला आग लावून धूर केला होता. “भारी डास चावत्यात”, अस explanation आजोबांनी दिलं.
रात्री जेवणाचं invitation आलं आणि आम्ही लगेच उठलो. For dinner there was भाकरी, डाळ, बटाट्या ची भाजी, कांदे, after eating till our bellies were full, we we went outside, where it was lightening a bit in the sky. Seeing that, काकू suggested us to sleep in the verandah, instead of school. उंबरे काका ही, ”पाणी आलं की दार वाजवा”, म्हणून गेले.
I kept looking at the sky, moonlight had lit the border of the dark clouds with white light. Cool breeze was kissing my cheeks and tickling my nose. I connected my phone to my power bank and went to sleep. I woke up when it was still dark, Rajesh was deep asleep, I got up quietly and went out in the dark for a walk, “कोंबडं घशातून ओरडत होतं”, बाकी गुडूप शांतता होती.”.
I woke Rajesh up and packed our bags, paid उंबरे काका, for the dinner, bid adieu to Rajmachi चे आजोबा and left the village. The trail to Kondeshwar starts from East of valvand and soon divides into two. The one going sharply towards right was more prominent and had saffron markings on them. Stereotypical thinking of linking saffron with temples, led us on that trail, after walking a bit I realised that we were walking southwards on the bank of Shirota lake, hence keeping the mountain range to our left, while we wanted to climb on the mountain range towards North, keeping it to our right. On realising that we are on wrong path, we turned back to the village. A काकू from the village confirmed that I had taken a wrong route and showed me the right path.
Soon we were climbing up alongside a dried up, walled water channel. We walked on the wall for a while till it ended near a waterfall, which i guessed might be feeding the channel in rains. Then a fairly beaten trail took us upwards, and we entered a dense jungle, green and silent. The magnificence of the jungle was only felt when we climbed up and looked at it down from a height. No trace of ground was seen through the dense trees, बघून पुर्ण टरकली! अश्या उन्हात असा हिरवा प्रकार अजून तरी कधी माझ्या नजरेत आला नव्हता. निसर्गाच्या त्या ever shocking nature che धडे मिळाले.
Eyes could see Shrivardhan fort, to it's right the mighty Manjar Sumbha, which looked like a resting wild cat, and to it's right the big massif of Dhak mountain, connected to Deccan plateau by a dark green forested ridge. That's the view I came for. It was much much wilder and much much huge and much much exhilarating than I had imagined. After properly capturing that view in my mind we started walking towards north, keeping valley to left, soon the mountain wall on the right got shorter until it disappeared turning the way southwards. From here keeping wall to the right we started descending. Now we could see the Kondeshwar temple down in the valley, our next milestone. वाटेवर एक मेलेला विंचू दिसला, मेलेला असून सुद्धा त्याच्या डंख आक्रमक होता, पाहून पुन्हा टरकली. Ants were feasting on that dead ferocious scorpion. After traversing the mountain for a while we started descending, after crossing a dried but huge water stream, we reached the temple. First the plan was to sleep here the previous night, but unavailability of water had made me drop the plan. What an area! surrounded by hills and dhak mountain showing itself from between two. It would have been an awesome place to spend a night.
From here a dirt road took us to Jambhavali, it was 10.10 AM, we had missed the 10.00AM bus, दुकानावरच्या काकांशी गप्पा मारून आणि biscuit खाऊन आम्ही चालतच निघालो. इथून कामशेत 20 KM आहे, we got lift after walking for about 2 kms, then soon we were at kamshet station. आणि हो, कामशेत स्टेशन जवळ एक भारी मिसळ पाव locate केला आहे!
