Wednesday 12 November 2008
Kalavantin Durg - "Great things are done when men and mountains meet" - William Blake
Kalavantin Durg was an enjoyable and fast trek, before we (Mayuresh, Viresh, Vivek and I) knew it, we were back home. The experience was breath-taking, literally too, because it was a tough climb.Since all our exams concluded, and we hadn't gone for a trek for what seemed like ages, we planned this trek. First and foremost it was relaxing to just get out of town after all the projects, studying and exams, leave alone how relaxed we were after the trek.
Sunday is the day for trekkers to come out of their shell, so was it for us. 19th October, 2008 was the day.
After like hardly an hour's rest at night (mainly due to the excitment), got ready for the trek. All of us were to meet at 04:30am in order to get a train of around 05:30am from Kurla to Panvel. We reached Kurla early and got the 05:19am local train to Panvel. It took us nearly an hour to reach there. The bus to Thakurwadi was at 07:00am, which meant we had to kill 40 mins to get it, instead we decided to get a rickshaw to the village. It cost us 160 bucks by rickshaw between the four of us.
We got off near Zoia Resort, where from one has to take the route left, after walkin on the road for a while, after which the ascend starts. Our trek started at around 07:00am. We reached earlier than we had planned, that gave us ample of time. There were a couple of other groups with us but we didnt bother waiting for them and took the lead despite us not knowing the way (lol). We made sure they didnt fall back over a distance behind us, kept them in sight in case we were lost.
The first half an hour of the trek itself was tiring mainly because it was a steep climb. After this region passed it was pretty decent, though we made it difficult for ourselves by taking ways which were not meant to be. Rock Climbing our way up at times, taking different routes just for the fun of it, and marking our way back so that we dont get lost at the descend.
At around 10:30am we reached the topmost point. To get to the peak one has to rock climb a patch of around 20m. Climbing this part was fun. Many people from the groups which were along with us decided to stay down owing to the steepness of this patch, but their fear was not something which was going to affect our determination. :)
We had lunch at the peak and were chilling for a while, after which we started our descend. After killing so much time too we finished the climb early, so we were relaxed and did not hurry while climbing down.
At a certain place, on our way down, we saw a tree under which was built a concreted-circular structure. We rested here for like an hour, had more food, and continued. One of the problems we faced during this trek was that we fell short of water, despite the fact that we carried the same amount of water we always do. It was actually the heat which took the toll on us.
On our way down, we came across this medow, where there were like a million butterflies. Mayuresh and I stopped here for a prolonged photography session. Continuing our descend, we reached back the Zoia Resort from where we could get the bus directly to Panvel.
When we reached Panvel Station, all of us were so tired, that since we couldnt find any empty benches ro sit on, we sat on the platform itself. lol. Our train was nearly 45 mins late, so to kill time, all we could think of doing was shoot pictures and videos. The stares we got from the people around us was worth a look. Hahaha.
After a tiring, testing trek through the day we reached our respective homes at round 10:00pm. Even though the trek was tough, it was enjoyable for us, and what majorly helped us complete the trek with ease was the fact that it went as planned.
