Date :30 Sep – 1 Oct, 2012
This was Part-I of the Kas trip.
Plan : Day 1 – Mumbai > Pavana Lake > Mulshi Lake > Overnight @ Malhar Machi Resort, Mulshi
Day 2 – Mulshi Lake > Kaas Pathar > Overnight @ Nivant Hill Resort, Kaas Road
Steed : My humble li’l Estilo .. who took me thru thick n thin as u’ll soon find out !
Nomads : Wife, daughter n urs truly !
We had missed doing a Kaas trip for the past couple of years – due to silly reasons like – waiting for the right bloom, rain, sunshine, it’s too far, chaotic on weekends etc etc … and so this year wifey put her foot down saying – we will go no matter what – flowers or no flowers. She made all the plans this time, looking for a good long weekend, planning the Kaas visit for a weekday and doing all the bookings.
There was another reason that gave us the motivation for Kaas. Wife was hellbent on staying at Malhar Machi Resort by Mulshi lakeside, as she had heard good reviews of it. That would put us halfway to Kaas from Mumbai – distance being one of the major factors to get me lazy the last year.
Finally, as the day arrived, we had all bookings in place, leave sanctioned, necessary printouts taken, Google Navigation installed and tested on the phone, car serviced, bags packed … and we were all set for the drive. So, off we trode, from Mulund (Mumbai), on the morning of 30th Sep @ 9:00 am with the target of reaching Malhar Machi by lunchtime.
We hit the Mumbai-Pune expressway in 45 mins due to a busy Thane-Belapur road. No further traffic on the expressway meant a smooth ride and a quick exit at Khandala on NH4. We had the customary stop at A1-chikki for my favourite dry-fruit chikki and then got into and out of Lonavla asap ..
The drive by “Lohagad” did tempt me for a quick visit, but the request was shot down due to lack of time, and we continued through “Dudhiware Khind” towards “Pavana Lake”. The actual route to Malhar Machi is via Chandani Chowk, but we chose this alternative, to feed my desire of seeing a full Pavana Lake and the twins – “Tung and Tikona” – which look beautiful as the backdrop from either side. We took a short photo-stop at the boating spot at Pavana before moving on.
All was well till we passed by the lovely Pavana Dam and Tikona – with Google Navigation proving to be real good. It was after we crossed Tikona, and got onto the Javan-Tungi road, that I made a horrible mistake. Google Navigation showed the route to Malhar Machi on the left, but there was no road – it was a dirt track suitable only for trucks, bad – even for an SUV – moreover – uphill !!!. The road going straight seemed (atleast on map) to take a huge detour around Mulshi Lake. I assumed the dirt track would ease out after a distance, but it was a bad choice. The road started getting worse, with my car’s underbody scraping every few meters on the rocks below. Soon the road vanished and I was driving on grass, rocks, the road did not seem to get any better and I almost started to panic – thinking what would happen if I had a breakdown here. Stopped every few minutes to check if there was any signs of a leak. I must have driven almost 5-6 kms on that road when a god-sent villager walked by and assured me that I was lost :O … Ofcourse, he hadn’t heard of Malhar Machi, but he said the golden words – “the road gets better after a km, and there’s a village ahead” 🙂 .. Pumped up by that response and the sight of humans, I drove the next 15 kms following Navigation, and thanked my stars when we reached the resort, all including the car – in one piece.
Had seen a couple of mongoose and a snake on that track, but, unfortunately was not in the frame of mind to take any pictures.
It took a couple of hours for the heartbeat to settle down as we eased into the wonderful ambience of Malhar Machi. The room (Maharaja-Sonchafa) had an awesome view of Mulshi lake. Rest of the evening was spent in leisure – a relaxing swim in the pool – delicacies at dinner – a walk around the resort. But, we still had the boring activity of re-packing all the stuff we took out.
Had a good night’s sleep at the resort and were geared up for Part-II of the trip to Kas after some morning clicks.
Ideal route map for Malhar Machi
Map Location
[googlemaps https://maps.google.co.in/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Malhar+Machi,+MH&aq=0&oq=malhar+machi&sll=18.83398,73.362752&sspn=0.791549,1.234589&t=h&ie=UTF8&hq=Malhar+Machi,+MH&ll=18.543566,73.518528&spn=0.00178,0.00228&z=18&iwloc=A&output=embed&w=425&h=350]