A night with camping followed by trekking to the fort - Ghangad Trekking

Day 1

Ghangad

I was craving since a long time to go out for camping and trekking somewhere around Pune itself and then I planned for Ghangad as Mountain Madness was organising the similar event at my availability.

I asked Rohit one of my childhood friends to accompany me as he has already done few treks and camping. He agreed and we both confirmed for this.

I and Rohit left from Pune & Kalyan respectively to report at Lonavala Station where we had a tempo(Bolero Pickup) reserved for us. We were literally thrilled by travelling in the tempo as it was all open and few of our co-trekker climbed on the top of the tempo and few sat on extending the back portion of tempo.

We left Lonavala at around 7PM and hence the sun has set and it was being a little dark.

We made some space to fix our bombs there to interact with our co-trekkers. And in a while we succeeded in being the affable with them. We had a lot of fun on the way when the dense Jungle started. We discussed the stories of ghosts to have fun in that dense forest and didn't leave a single chance to utter about Stree.

Photo of Ghangad, Ekole Village Road, Tail Baila, Maharashtra, India by Akhilesh Maurya - Mr. Booster

Our driver was in the form and he drove as if he was carrying goats behind. He was no less than the Kalin Bhaiya in his skills. Being Khurchali, we didn't leave the chance of nominating our driver as Kalin Bhaiya.

We reached the base village of Ghangad Fort. The village is quite small and the whole villagers were sound asleep, few on the ground and few on the cots in front of their doors.

We got down of the tempo and made a circle to introduce ourselves with one another. And it was good to know that there were 3-4 students of 12th std with us and one Aunty also who had joined us with her son.

We started our trekking to go on the mountain where we had to camp in the night. As it was my first trekking, I had forgotten to take the torch with me. Thank God, I had my love charged which helped me showing the light on the way between the dense forest.

There comes two small temples on the way which we had crossed in the darkness and hence we halted for sometime at the third temple which is the bigger one.

We left from there again and reached at the entrance of the fort where we had to camp. There were one group already who had stayed in caves of the fort. We took out our tents and fixed there on the open sky ground. Making the opening of tents in the east direction, we extended them in a row so that we could witness the beauty of sun rise next morning.

The Bonfire was lit and we roasted the barbeques on it. We sat around the bonfire making a circle and started Antakshari. Rohit, being much passionate about singing took the lead in it and I just gave the chorus that too in the broken form of the lyrics.

We had maggy also in the night and after that we 5 people sat in a group and started talking about our lives. There were two girls named Antara & Afroz who were best friends and good singers even.

There was Nishant also, all time fun guy, who had the answers of each scenario in the funny way and had continued the aura of fun throughout our session.

Day 2

Ghangad Fort

Later in the night, we went for sleeping. We woke up early in the morning and saw the rising Sun in front of our opening of the tent,

We captured few beautiful pictures of it also. Later, we saw below the ground that was amazing scene full of farmland spreaded and dense jungle beside it.

We got freshened up and had Poha in breakfast. We had some fruit as well before leaving for the summit of the fort.

There is a iron ladder fixed beside the entrance of the fort from where one can climb for trekking over the fort. Once I got up through the ladder, I saw the water reserved in the caves in front of the ladder and at left side, there's a metal foot rest where one rests the foot to go up. There are ropes tied from which you can take support.

We climbed on the fort and reached at the top where the flag of warrior ShivaJi was hoisted.

Reaching there we trekked over the top and reached at the point from where the elegant beauty of nature can be captured. I and Rohit took a selfie and few pictures and then we sat there on the ground for few minutes with no talking to each other and just felt the moment by looking surrounding. I was contemplating about the Life's situations with the vicissitudes of those alluring mountains.

After exploring the summit of the fort we took few pictures and started coming down to the place where we had camped. We winded up everything and took a group picture in the cave beside where we had camped.

We rested there for sometime as the cool breezes were there which was soothing the tiredness of ours and gave the contentment of the trip.

We got Kalin Bhaiya waiting for us to come. We put our belongings in the tempo and I & Rohit decided to sit on the front top of the tempo to have fun.

And you won't believe, we had taken the best decision of life to get on the top. There were Antara & Afroz also. Once the tempo started, we also shown our Josh with the Huhhhuuuuuhhhuuuu loud voice. Rohit being much enthusiastic about signings proposed us for having fun with singing on the way.

They all started singing and I lived each moment uttering the incorrect lines of the lyrics but laughing all the way. We captured video even on the way singing and laughing out loudly to live the best moment of our lives.

And this is how I ended my first trekking cum camping with the beautiful memories in my heart.