Tuesday, August 02, 2005

We went on a trek to Bhivpuri Road

Pictures are being developed,coming soon...
-------------------------------------------------
Its sunday 24th july 2005, left my house at 7:40, caught a TMT bus to thane station. There, I took a return ticket to bhivpuri, it cost me 30bucks.
From thane caught 8:07 ambarnath train, my friends JP and Sanket were waiting for me there.
By that train we reached dombivli at 8:22, there Mahendra joined us, we saluted each other(that is the way we greet each other).
From dombivli, we caught a 8:32 khopoli train, the train was packed, the next station another huge group of trekkers joined us.
As the train sped away from mumbai, the scenery turned greener, rainy and less inhabitated. After a while, I stood at the door, letting the rainy wind sting my face, all the while, trying to steer my nose away from the stink of rum, no we weren't drinking but the guys in front of us were. We reached bhivpuri road station at 9:45, on the way saw the petit diesel train at neral, taking passengers to matheran(next time we are planning go there). We got down from the train, with our to backs to the direction we came from, we started walking. The railway platform ended soon, we kept walking on the rail tracks for about 100metres, then tuned right, the board reading Sainik Nagar, the kuchha road, took us through a settlement(some call it village). This the point from where it started raining significantly, so out come the wind cheaters(cheaties), I know its trek in the rain, but the cheaties were out, to provide protection to our bags. After covering 300 mts., we were out of the settlement, out on the pukka road, then we turned left, kept walking the road flanked by some shops(food stalls to be appropriate), furthuer, on both sides of the road all you could see were green fields, well, not really, one the left we had the mountains, and on the right, all we could see was open fields, and yeah! the the train. We walked some 300mts approx., and then took a right turn. To our right, we walked through another kucha road, this road went through another settlement, as soon as we reached the end of the settlement, we saw small fast flowing rivulet came in our way. From this point began our 'real' trek to ground zero(i.e. the point where the waterfall..what else..falls), to reach ground zero we had to walk through some rice fields, no slush walk here, the fields were divided into small squares, with all of them having banking wide enough to walk. Being sunday, the place wasn't really a isolated spot, so its better to come here on weekdays. This route was quite slippery, and the rain(light drizzle) didn't help matters. The scenario here is that, as far as our eyes could see, there were four waterfalls here, but the one straight ahead(the one behind the hill with the pole) was the largest and more crowded, the others were small in comparison, while one was virgin. the drizzle didn't allow me to take my cam(an old kodak kroma35) out. 'The hill with the pole' was to the right of the track which ended to the foot of the waterfall. We decided to trek to the top of the hill, well it wasn't steep nor a shorty, but it was slipery, we were on our four's, for quite a sizable time. The climb was a sapper, we halted midway, had some
'priyagold coconut crunch, then it struck Sanket that he had brought an umbrella, a thought which would have sounded stupid, but in the current scenario, it was the smartest thing, the one to allow us to take some pics. And that is what we did took some pics, reached the top, and dropped the idea of going to other 'less crowded waterfalls', till then it had started raining very heavily.Then, instead of going down the route from where we came, we decided to keep walking along the hill edge and then reach the falls. Mahendra ventured ahead to check out if it was trekkable, I joined him, it wasn't good enough to let us reach to the falls. But instead of going back, Mahendra suggested that we go down the slope, and then walk to the falls, thinking JP and Sanket would have gone back, as they weren't behind us, we went ahead , or to be appropriate we went down. Was the ride downhill a cakewalk? well, it wasn't, it was damn slippery, Mahendra ws swifter then me, I managed to stumble a bit, but didn't really have a mush slide, it was a adrenaline filled downhill trek, I would say, it was totally 'paisa vasool'. Hey, here they are!. Sanket and JP, ditching the idea of going back, were following us, both managed it safely. Believe me it wasn't as simple as I am saying, one wrong step and 'you will have a great slide down the hill, with rocks and mud to give you company downhill. Hey! what is life without some risk, as they say, at that moment we could say, RISK is our middle name. Ok. Then we had to walk through slush to reach the foot of the falls, my sports shoes were all filled up with muck. There was stream ahead of us, formed due to...what else the falls. Calling it stream is foolish, it was really fast enough to flow away a full grown adult, but it wasn't deep enough for white river rafting?!?. We found some rocks to sit on, letting our feets experience a jacuzzi effect, thanks to a strong current(of course water), we cleaned our shoes, had some chips, and sat there for a while, JP sat down in the water, with rocks for support, even I tried to sit, but had no rocks to help, I would have got flown away, but JP grabbed me. Then we started moving towards ground zero, we ditched the idea of getting under the falls, it was damn crowded, this idea didn't bother me much, as I don't fancy the idea of getting wet in the falls. Thanks to me, we wasted 10 minutes, as I couldn't figure out how to change the roll of my camera, then we went near the base of the falls, clicked some pics, then began our return our journey. Well the return journey was nothing great, as it was along the same route, difference being, Sanket managed to slip, soiling himself, cheatie saved his clothes, and the other hallmark of this place being, the number of drinkers
coming here, could easily manage to outnumber us, we clicked some more pics, sat at one of the dhabbas(road side eateries) along the main road, there we had our tiffins, for the sake of sitting there ordered mazaa and pepsi. Other than the fact that, from the point we reached ground zero and the return journey, it didn't rain at all, then?nothing got into the train, and returned, I have already decided to come back here, even if alone, and that time it will be more of a trekking sojourn, till then,,,and in case Sanket, JP, Mahendra, you guys are reading and feel that I have missed something, do tell me.
Till then here is a X-Men Evolution quote:
Kitty: "Lance, you can be such a jerk sometimes!"
Scott: "Alvers, leave her alone!"
Lance: "Hey, go recharge your batteries Goggle Boy. This is between me and her."
Episode Fourteen - Growing Pains

1 comment:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.