A visit to Visapur fort was overdue. When we finally decided on the day, there were in all four people, myself, Akshay, Amit and his brother Jeethendra. We were going to catch the Pandharpur Passenger which leaves at 11:45 P.M. from Kalyan. The train was late by some 10-15 minutes. Myself and Amit made ourselves comfortable on a berth while Akshay and Jeethendra had to stand all the way. We reached Lonavala by around 2:10 A.M. We enquired about the first train to Pune which was at 5' o clock. Purchasing ticket up to Malvali was of no use because from 2 to 5 it would have been more than the time limit allotted for travelling. We decided to catch some sleep while sitting on the railway bench. We caught the first train and got down at Malvali by 5:10 A.M.
Since we didn't get enough sleep we decided to rest at the platform itself. We all woke up well past 6. Had light snacks at a nearby hotel.
We started towards the fort at 6:45 A.M. After crossing the expressway through the suspension bridge we turned left and passed through what looked like a village running all around the hill. The hill that was visible from the station was covering the mountain we had to climb. We passed through many a dry waterfall paths until we came across one which was flowing. It seemed unlikely that it was going to rain that day. We got somewhat lost in the middle and when we reached at the top, there was lot of sunshine. A wonderfully sculptured Hanuman welcomed us just as we reached the fort's entrance. It was around 9:15 A.M. when we reached Visapur fort. There was some water source at the top so Jeethendra decided to wash himself clean. Myself and others decided it was better that we don't take a bath.. There was not much of breeze and we decided to rest for a while. We filled up our water bottles and moved towards the left side of the fort which had been left unexplored by Amit and his brother when they had visited the fort last time. We walked towards the other end till we reached what looked like a watch tower. We had our breakfast there which comprised of a delicious Pulav and Chivda. Later we went to the top of the watch tower and had a pleasant view of the landscape below. We then returned back to the fort entrance and moved towards the other side.
There was an ancient Shiv Mandir nearby probably built during Shivaji's reign . There was nobody except a herd of buffaloes who were rather surprised to see us. That was evident from the staring that they gave us. One of them even wanted to have a closer look of us but we foiled that opportunity by running away. Although we had no place to run since we had reached the cliff. We were of the idea that the fort was connected to the other fort Lohgad. But we realized that we had to descend down the cliff. Amit and Jeethendra decided to get down using the path followed by the waterfalls. Akshay sprained his ankle, which later turned out to be hairline fracture. We got down at around 3:30 P.M. We cancelled our visits to Lohgad and Baje Caves. We had our lunch inside a small patched enclosure. We returned to Malavali station by around 4:30 PM. Since our train was at 4:50 PM we had some light snacks and tea. We caught the train at around 4:50 PM. Got down at Lonavala. We were supposed to catch Udyan Express which arrived at around 5:30 PM. We reached Kalyan by 7 PM. So that was how we undertook a trek to Visapur fort.
Here's a link to the rest of the photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/n.ramaswamy/Visapur
No comments:
Post a Comment