iBlog: Nishit Shah

Its been a long time since I had gone for a trek and I just managed to join my office junta for the last trek as the summer has already set in and the trekking season will now resume from monsoon. I am sure now that I am not gonna miss any of those now. How easy or how difficult it is to plan a trek @ Directi ? All one needs to do is to edit the intranet Wiki about the upcoming trek and folks who are interested just edit it and add their names or comment on it. A couple of days before the trek, the POA is added and the place and time to meet and things to carry along are decided. We had decided to meet at Dadar station and catch a 4:45 am local to Karjat but as people joined in a bit late, we had to let go it and catch the next one heading to Karjat @ 05:30 odd. It took little more than 2 hours to reach Karjat and from there we took a ST bus which took us to a small village called Ambivali not to be confused with similar sounding Amby Valley We just managed to grab a couple of vadapavs and some juices before we started towards our destination. We were 9 of us and everyone was carrying atleast 2 litres of water and some food. Since it was damn hot, we were getting dehydrated very quickly. In the beginning we followed long wide road laid with stones. It was not very steep but very tiring as it was getting hotter and we were getting exhausted quickly. After an hour or so, we reached the plateau which is normally the first proper rest for the trek to Peth. Peth fort or Kotligad (1550 ft) was a watch post for soldiers guarding the Bhor Ghat, an important trade route between Pune and Kalyan. We could see the Peth fort from there and the had a sigh of relief as we knew that we were on the right track. Its easy to get lost while trekking. I remember last time I had gone trekking in Kashmir, me and one of my friend were way ahead and lost and ended up in an Army base camp far far away from where rest of the group were. We finally managed to unite with them after almost 3 hours of searching !! That was fun. We took a lot of snaps and rested for a while and started again. Luckily, on our way, towards the Peth village we found few people working on some stone quarry. They had a tractor which was going back to the village and they gave us a ride. The roads were obviously very uneven and the tractor ride was very bumpy. With all the body parts in my stomach shaking it gave me a feeling of a ride at Esselworld. We reached the base village and started walking towards the fort. This time around the climb was very steep and since it was noon the sun was exactly over us. With no trees around, we got exhausted very quickly. Somehow we managed to reach on the top. The slope was very steep and I managed to hurt my hand little bit as I slipped on dried leaves.

The fort was amazing. The view was most amazing from there. I could see small farms, villages from the top. It felt like I was playing Age of Empires in real world ! The fort had a couple of water tanks, a canon, temple and some neatly carved pillars. We took a lot of snaps and ate whatever we were carrying in our bags. Being a guju, I have never cherished theplas but here I relished eating every bit of it. While coming to the top we had asked a villager to prepare lunch for all of us so that we could have it after we came down. We reached the village somehow by 3 in the afternoon had lunch, hired a tumtum, and took a long ride to Karjat Station. Managed to jump in a Deccan which was coming from Pune and reached home by 7pm. Little sister surprised me with the sizzler that she had made. This was by far the best Sizzler I had ever had ! Slept peacefully for 9 hours that night !