Koraigad

Date : 6th Aug 2010

After an unsuccessful attempt for Koraigad on the previous weekend due to very heavy rains and dense fog, we decided to try it out again. Plan was to drive down all the way to Peth Shahapur, the village below Koraigad and start the trek from there. Being a simple trek what with Amby Valley folks literally building steps to the top, this was surely not going to be a hectic one. But Yogesh had other plans. 🙁

Since he stays in Ambernath, which is closer to Lonavala than Mulund, he somehow felt the route to Lonavala via Ambernath would be easier for him to avoid the inconvenience of waking up early. In this he scr*w*d us 🙁 ..

Me and Santosh started early morning @ 6:30 from Nahur station, and reached Mahape in fifteen minutes in what was a smooth ride. The ride after that to Ambernath introduced us to HELL !. Our troubles began as soon as we took the left turn below the Mahape flyover.The road was so bad that it was difficult to identify if it was a road or a rocky river bed. I struggled to manouvre my Estilo in this rocky terrain, driving at a maximum speed of 10 km/hr till the road softened a bit. It smoothened off until we touched the NH4 at Shil Phata, but then we again landed into a huge ditch at the road leading to Katai.

We took the right at Katai Naka and moved straight on towards Ambernath. Although this is a 2-lane road on either side, its badly potholed and one has to swerve wildly between the 2 lanes to keep the ride as smooth as possible. I was cursing Yogesh all the way. He had asked us to pick him up somewhere at a T-junction near Ambernath. After crossing umpteen of them and no sign of Yogesh, we decided to call him up to check – only to realise he still hadn’t left home. Now in a fix whether we had already crossed the T-junction or yet to reach, I cursed him even more than earlier. Finally, his father came to the rescue, and we realised that the next T was where we had to pick him up. His dad was nice enough to drop him there on his Activa and after the customary smiling hello (in his dad’s presence) and the kick in the butt (after he had left) we were enroute Badlapur.

The road worsened even further and did not improve until we crossed Badlapur. Another set of these bad roads and my Estilo would have easily given up. Luckily the roads improved after Badlapur and we zoomed past Vangani, Shelu, Neral until we reached Karjat. Have to admit this was a scenic drive with just the odd motorcycle or car visible.

As we left Karjat, we reached a fork in the road with the average looking left turn signposted as Lonavala, Khopoli and the smooth straight going to an unknown destination. Going by the obvious we took the left assuming it was the NH4. That turned out to be a wrong choice as it went thru a lot of unknown villages and we had to ultimately ask for directions to catch the expressway. We somehow got to it at the Khalapur Toll Naka and I thanked my stars for finally getting onto a dream patch of highway.

A short snack stop at Foodmall and we were back on the road … We took the exit at Khandala and continued on the NH4 till we reached the right at Kumar Resort, Lonavala. Another right after crossing the tracks and we were already moving towards Bhushi Dam. That was anyways not on our plan due to the unruly and hopeless weekend crowd. Moving ahead towards INS Shivaji, we took the left for Amby Valley and hereon the road was a piece of cake. A small ghat section later we were in the clouds already. There was dense fog on the road and we were forced to drive with parking lights on. We crossed the Air Force station and the Lions point in some time and approx. 10 kms later we came to Cloud 9 and then Peth Shahapur. The road moves straight onto Amby valley where it’s a dead end.

Luckily Amby valley folks have maintained the entire patch of road very very well and its a dream ride. We parked our car at the temple in the village and moved onto the trek to Koraigad. All we could see from here was a faint view of a wall like structure and Santosh mentioned if we came all this way to climb this small fort. Also the wall looked to steep that all of us had second thoughts on climbing this one.

But soon we came to a point where we could find a neat set of steps to the top. 45 minutes later we had reached the Ganesh Darwaza.

Once we set foot on the top, the visibility was next to zero. All we could see was a small temple on the shores of a lake and grass all around on what seemed like a plateau. Assuming this to be the same all day, we didnt waste anymore time and decided to take a walk along the fort bastions. We soon reached what we thought was the end point from where the path curved back to where we came from. This looked like a good place to have our lunch

Out came the tasty chutney made by Santosh’s wife and we had it with bread and Maggi Pichkoo. Santosh had also brought along some tasty chivda. The weather suddenly cleared and we were treated with a breathtaking view. We were now seated at the edge of the wall-like structure we had seen from below.

Peth Shahapur could easily be seen from there and so was the temple where we had parked our car. The Amby valley airstrip was visible as well and the famous edge of Koraigad so prominent on the internet also had a small waterfall flowing along it.

We spent some time taking pics of this place and then decided to walk back along the bastions. One the way back we saw a big cannon (Laxmi Tof) and another temple. It had started to rain heavily by now and all cameras were back into the plastic bags. We began our descent in sometime and in 30 mins we were back in the village.

The rains had refused to subside and we decided to move. The climb down the ghat was again an exciting experience and soon we were in Lonavala. This time we took a right on NH4 (towards Kamshet) and took the entry for the expressway. Almost touching 120 kmph we zoomed through the expressway and after a solitary stopover at Foodmall for a snack, we were back in Mumbai my 6 pm

Would definitely recommed this one for a family trek since it is a very easy one and close to Mumbai.

Map Location

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