Our country has seen many dynasties, has experienced the best and the worst of rulers. One such daunting period was when the Maratha Empire was flourishing with its great speed. When it comes to history, I have always been fascinated with the things like empire expansion, strategic planning, wars fought, captive ventures etc. Talking about the history of the mighty Maratha Empire, bith these forts The Rayreshwar Fort and the Kinjalgad Fort are of great importance. It is on the Rayreshwar fort, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had taken an oath of Hindavi Swarajya; while Kinjalgad Fort served as one of the most important military stations of the empire. It was a great deal to capture the Kinjalgad fort as the part of military campaign.
Well, enough of the history classes; let me take you on the journey of my trek to the Rayreshwar Fort. To begin this trek, me and few of my friends left Pune early morning at around 0500 hours on our bikes. It is around 85 kms away from Pune, which approximately should take around 3 hours to reach the destination. It always advised to trek these forts early morning before the sun rises over your heads, for the major reason being it’ll tier or dehydrate you less and also that you’ll get enough time to explore the fort further.
Trek to Rayreshwar fort isn’t a very tough as there are steps to climb. Though few of them are quite steep to climb, it can be easily managed. Once you reach the top of this fort, you can see the glorious Kinjalgad Fort right opposite to it. The beautiful valley, crisscross road below, half the mountains covered by fog early morning makes it a delightful scene to watch. We take a short break here to capture this scenic beauty and live the serene moment.
Next, proceed with exploring the fort - some ruins, Rayreshwar temples, aswal lake, fields, talking to the locals there etc. While we walk across the circumference of this fort, we see lush green wheat fields, forest like area with huge trees. Walking along the pathway in the fields literally brought back my childhood memories where I used to spend my summer vacations. Talking to the locals there made me feel, these lead such a simple and technology free life. They have altogether a different struggle of life; where we struggle in traffic, they struggle for livelihood, while we get irritated for no Wifi they are least interested in this. All they bother about is some peaceful life and a day with a little less struggle to fill their bellies.
After more than half the fort was explored walking amidst the forest like areas, fields, barren lands, Aswal lake and visiting the temple where His highness had taken the oath, we were highly exhausted and needed some fuel to proceed further. Me being a little more inclined towards creating content, I tend to take some extra time to click pictures of anything and everything I find interesting. When trying to recollect and relive the moments of joy and cheers of the trips, it is these captures which walk us through the memory lane. Isn’t it?
After all the content creation was done, we decide to take the most awaited lunch break. Alright! If you are a new bee to trekking specially in the Maharashtrian area, I must tell you always opt to have you lunch in the homes of these locals. They serve really delicious food for bare minimal amounts. Trust me it’ll be figure liking yummy! Filling up our bellies with fuel we were all set to finish the remaining area and trek downhill. So now, we were left with reaching those hidden caves popularly known as the Pandav Leni and we were done with the entire exploration of the fort. This was the tricky part of the trek because we lost way almost trice. In the end when we reached the caves, we see they were all blocked with mud and bushes. Of course, this was a little disappointing but nevertheless, it was fun to lose way too. Pandav Leni being the last point to cove, we trek down to end this trek. All in all another memorable trek completed!
