Date : 23 Jul, 2011
It had been a long time since all four of us were free on the same weekend. Santosh had planned his trip to Mumbai well in advance and we had to make it somehow this weekend. Mayur and Yogesh were ready but I had my doubts about office. Luckily work got postponed and I thanked my stars who don’t usually support me. Since I had already paid a King’s ransom 🙁 to get wifey’s approval for these bachelor treks, I had to make it by hook or by crook.
The options considered were aplenty as usual – varying from the complex Ratangad, Rajmachi, Mahuli to the easier Irshalgad, Duke’s Nose etc when I happened to see some pics of Karnala trek posted on BCMT and was suprised to see how beautiful it looked in the monsoon. I had always passed by this place on my way to Konkan and had never considered this as a serious trek. To add to it, all pics I had seen were of the winter season and the non-attractive look of it never appealed to me … till now. So Karnala it was … as the approach to this was the easiest.
We decided to meet at Thane station and boarded the 08:01 Thane-Panvel train. Luckily managed to get seats – actually just one bench with the four of us 🙂 yet it did not stop us from talking about all kinds of stuff ranging from work – to – D.K. Bose – to – the horrifying accident at Patalpani waterfall. The traind reached Panvel in an hour’s time.
We were looking for a place to relieve ourselves … but the “Toilet” boards seemed to be pointing to nowhere. Finally when we found it, we were left aghast at the long line of people extending to the open area outside the station:) … Considering this would have been a trek in itself, we dropped the plan and moved on towards the ST stand.
The ST stand is a 10-15 min walk from the staion. To reach Karnala, you need to catch a bus going towards Alibaug/Pen. We managed to get one going towards Alibaug and set off at 09:20. Be sure to ask the conductor if the bus will stop at Karnala beforehand. The bus dropped us at the entrance ofthe sanctuary @ 10:00 .
Entrance fee to the sanctuary is Rs 20 per adult (Rs 50 for a car). While Santosh was buying the tickets, we spotted the most peculiar of boards. This had a list of all travellers in the past who had indulged in “crimes” like feeding monkeys, throwing plastic/food, making unnecessary noise, dumping waste etc – with fines ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 10000 :O . We were not even carrying that much money, and therefore it was a good deterrent from trying any of those things – not that we wanted to 🙂
The path from the entrance to the rest house is a well-tarred one. There is a fork to the left just before the guest house. This is the nature trail to Karnala fort. We, however, stuck to the main path. On the way met a Sardar and his wife (??) coming down from the same path. We had just seen them walk ahead sometime ago. On asking if that was the right path, he frustratingly nodded his head saying yes .. but there are a lot of mosquitoes. We carried on wondering how he could abandon the trek just at the fear of mosquitoes.
The trail from here is a steady climb for about an hour or so through the jungle. Natural steps formed by the roots of huge trees help in the climb and the vines provide good support. Considering this is a bird sanctuary, there wasn’t a single bird we could spot. Surely they must be far off from this human-frequented route, but it was sad not to see any bird here – not even sounds could be heard.
An hour later we reached a clearing which looked like a small plateau. We could spot the fort ahead and it was satisfying to know that the treacherous part of the climb was over. It was 11:30 and we decided to take our first snack break. So out came the dosas my mom had packed and we took utmost care not to drop anything on the way. The snack reminded us of the lunch at the Peth trek with no plates/spoons just hands used.
We resumed after the short snack and stopped just before the actual fort began. It was very pleasant here and the wind was really very soothing. There were just four others apart from us and that was the best part. but the joy was shortlived as we heard some more humans and in a few minutes, like a swarm of bees, around 60-70 school boys and girls thronged to the place. They had come from some school in Airoli and were a very noisy lot. We wondered, how were they going to be fined – cos they were breaking every rule in the book. Santosh got worked up by seeing them throwing bottles around and he even asked their teacher to be careful about it. But the teacher was least bothered, and that proved the behaviour of the students as well.
We decided to rush ahead before the bright red-blue-green-yellow colours of their t-shirts spoiled the great view of the fort. Luckily, they did not climb the fort and that was very satisfying. Small steps reach to the caves below the pinnacle with a shaky railing to hold onto. On the top there are some caverns for water storage and two bastions at different levels. The pinnacle – or the thumb as it is known is unscaleable to normal people and needs professional trekkers with equipment to reach the top. A flag on the peak proved it is scaleable.
On a clear day, one can see a lot of forts around, but it was too hazy today. All we could see were the resorts near Karnala. We had our second lunch break here. Aloo parathas brought by Mayur alongwith Maggi Pichkoo made for a tasty and filling snack. Rest of the time was spent in clicking DCH-style pics. At 13:15 we decided to descend.
The descend was pretty easy and fast. However, it rained a bit for sometime and that added to the huge group descending alongwith us, made the lose red soil wet and slippery. The students were at their mischievous best and many of them had bad falls, none serious though. It took us a mere hour or so to reach the base. Mayur and I managed to get hold of a tum-tum (6 seater rickshaw) to take us back to Panvel station. He asked for Rs 200 … but finally settled for 150. There was no sign of Yogesh as he had stopped at one of the bird cages to take pics of the peacock who had now fanned his tail.
A short 15 min drive later we were at Panvel station and boarded the 15:25 train to Thane. Back home by 17:00, this was the earliest I had returned from a day trek 🙂
Next target – Rail trek to Dudhsagar Falls – lets see if it happens 🙂
Summary
Train : Thane to Panvel : 1 hr
Bus : Panvel to Karnala : 45 mins
Trek ascend : 2-1/2 hrs
Trek descend : 1-1/2 hrs
TumTum : Karnala to Panvel : 15 mins
Total expenses per head : Rs 110 🙂
Read more about this place @ Karnala_Bird_Sanctuary, Karnala, Karnala Fort
Pictures from the trek
Map Location
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