Sinhgad Fort Travel Blog
Start of the trip (Bus) -
We planned our trip a day before. Me and Dinesh were going to come by Bus. Mahesh and Suresh were going to come by bike from Katraj.
I woke up at exactly 5:08 am and I got relaxed and thought that it will be easy to catch the bus at 7:00 from Shaniwar Wada if I left my home at 6:00 and boarded the bus from Bhosari to Manapa at 6:15. But it took longer for me to get ready and finally I got out of home at about 6:20, it was awfully late. My friend Dinesh reached at about 7:05 am and had to wait about 20–25 minutes. I reached at around 7:20 at Shaniwar Wada Bus stop and we boarded the bus no. 50 going from Shaniwar Wada to Sinhagad Paytha from which we had to start trekking.
On the way we checked our mobile battery levels fully charged and we were ready to go on our way. We were expected to reach the base of the fort by 9:30 am taking around 2 hours of journey by bus. On our way, Dinesh looked outside the window showing me the brilliant view of Khadakwasla Dam. We finally reached the base of fort and looking at time we reached too early at around 8:40 am.
At the stop, I had breakfast with Dinesh and then we called our friends Mahesh and Suresh of their whereabouts they left their homes from Katraj at about 8:20 am which took them about 1 hour to reach the base. In the meanwhile we looked at the beautiful scenery of the mountain and the fort standing proudly beneath the sun at a distance. There were local hotels offering parking and other services at a reasonable price.
Trekking -
We began our trekking at 9:30 am. The local people informed us that it is about 3 km and it will take around 1 and a half hours to reach the fort. We began our trekking by foot on plain road. We began to see local vendors selling a variety of things for tired travellers stopping for shelter such as limbu sharbat, lassi. I smirked and thought that we will reach the destination quickly without getting tired and be at the mercy of local vendors for shelter and water bottles that they were selling.
At about 1km I got very tired, my legs became numb and I realized as if the mountain was looking down and laughing hysterically at me. I was very interested in the flora and fauna of the forest. We tried to take shortcuts along the way climbing around the steep parts and sometimes we waited a lot. Mahesh had asthma so he had to wait at regular intervals. Sometime later, because of taking shortcuts too often we split apart. I was with Suresh going ahead taking more and more shortcuts along the dangerous treks and paths and Dinesh went along with Mahesh, they took longer routes and waited more frequently.
Me and Suresh were going at our own pace and sometimes he was ahead of me and sometimes it was the other way around. That was when he and I again split apart. I was applying a strategy for easy climbing by following the same footsteps as the person who was right ahead of me. I was looking down to follow the footsteps and after sometime when I looked above I came to know that I have climbed halfway a very steep track and my legs were going numb, Suresh was nowhere to be seen and I was scared to death. It took more than a pint of courage for me to complete the rest of the seemingly dangerous, steep path. I was climbing slowly above and suddenly a trekker shouted that this is a dead end and there is no path from here. I was dumbfounded and was confused whether to climb down the path or to find some other way. After some time, the trekkers above me found some way and finally I found some relief. Someone was also advising others to place their foot sideways to avoid tripping. After some more climbing I finally got out of the death mountain “tired to death mountain”. I could see the road going down the mountain and also the alternate safer route which I missed terribly.
Fort Visit -
Finally I got above the plateau which was at the entrance of the fort. I was very tired and it was already around 11:40 am i.e around 2 hours it took to climb up the mountain. There were people coming by jeep from that road. A group was also taking selfies sitting at the wall in front of the mountain and were then stopped by the police who were patrolling around the area.
After going up, I finally met Suresh who was eating kairi which he got from the local vendors and I got to know that he had taken the relatively safer alternate path and still managed to reach earlier than me. After 20 minutes were up, at 12:00 pm, taking about 2 and a half hours, Dinesh and Mahesh were on their way up to the entrance and we were ready for another round of kairi.
After that, we went through the entrance of the fort walking up the stairs through “Pune Darwaja”. Inside the fort ruins, there were various stations each of them gave a nice scenery of the mountain. One such station had a canon placed on it. From that station, we could view the highest point of the fort. It had a little climbing involved to get to the higher ground. From the top, we could see the overview of the whole fort. Next, we came down and had some snacks, after that we went towards the inner parts of the fort. There is an important structure called ‘Tanaji Malusare yanchi samadhi’ which has in the centre, great warrior Tanaji Malusare’s grave and there is a garden which features various statues of Maratha soldiers. Next, we went south of the fort to see Kalyan Darwaja. There were various small kundas which gave a nice cool breeze.
Lunch -
After going through all the major sights, it was around 1:30 pm, we went with one of the local vendors for lunch. We had Bhakri with vangyachi bhaji and pithla and dahi for lunch under a tree, we sat on plain grass with mat on it and enjoyed the open environment.
After that we headed back towards the entrance of the fort and towards the place where we ended our trek.
Going down the mountain -
We started going down the mountain slowly and carefully making sure we did not slip. Sometimes we took shorter routes while sometimes we ended up taking longer ones. Mahesh, at one point tripped so he had to take some rest before moving back again. We started going down again. We were picking on Dinesh a lot for his clumsy walking as he was slipping at regular intervals. After sometime, I started enjoying the coming down part and I started sprinting towards the end while the group was waiting for Mahesh to catch up since he could not walk longer because of his Asthma condition. Sometime later I got separated from the group since I was pacing without stopping much, I started following the footsteps of some agile kid that showed up and it seemed like he was very skilled at trekking. As I was busy following the kid, I lost track of the group. After waiting for sometime, I got reunited again and we went back to the stop we came from. It took us about 1 and a half hours in total.
Trip to Khadakwasla -
We had some evening snacks and then Mahesh and Suresh got ready with the bike while me and Dinesh got seated in the bus. We were on our way to Khadakwasla Dam. After getting there, first we reached the bank of the dam, it was 5:30 pm and the right time to view the setting sun. It was beautiful watching the sun go down in the water. After that we went into the water getting our trousers up to the knee and enjoyed the cool breeze. After that, we threw some stones in the water and started competing among ourselves regarding how many times the stone jumped on the water. I tried but failed to skip it more than once. After that Mahesh skipped it thrice over, we were impressed by his performance. But soon, it was overshadowed by Suresh’s trial in which he skipped 7 times, he was clearly the stone skipper of the day. After some stone throwing we got ready to head to our homes.
It was a lot of fun going through the adventures of the mountain, the fort and the dam. Goodbye Sinhagad.
