Adventure Trail to Korigadh

Before I start writing my first blog, let me just tell u one thing in advance. My favourite words are, brilliant, soooooper (that’s superlative of super and pronounced as the spelling is), but why this caution?? I might oops not might, will use these words a lil’ too often, so please excuse. After reading this people might come to a conclusion as to I am insane. But I would say insane is still a euphemism, coz when it comes to adventure I go bizarrely demented.The adventure plan was born on the Friday evening when some more adventure freaks like me finalized the destination, and it was Korigadh a fort made by Shivaji on the ranges of Shayadri. It’s around 20 km from Lonavala near Amby Valley.During the planning session (which happens quite often irrespective of the plan getting materialized) another sooooper weird idea took birth. We all thought of playing Ludo, Snakes & Ladder sitting right at the top of the hill. It was already late at night but I had to buy the game, for the insanely crazy I am. Mind you we are all 22 years young and in the world’s eye with a pretty decent IQ. With pretty decent IQ I mean, an IQ not of a 10 year old.The plan was to meet at Pune station at 7:30 am to board the 7:45 Lonavala train. Alarm at 6:45…snooze…6:50….snooze again….6:55….snooze yet again….7:00 o’ clock…expression on my face….Oh my goodness!!!! What the hell I am late.Some how I reached the station just on time, bought some snack to munch and boarded the train. The train had lots of empty seats but sitting in an empty local is strictly against the rules. There can’t be a better place than the footboard, so we all grabbed our lil’ space. It was around 8 in the morning the weather was good. Standing at the footboard I was enjoying the cool pristine breeze, a zillion different shades of green, a zillion micro waterfalls and occasional big ones and the whole feel of a brilliant morning just charged all my drained batteries.After an hour and a half’s traveling we reached Lonavala. Our destination was still 20 kms away. We were walking on the road searching for a transport. The adventure was about to start and a brilliant thing happened. A mini truck driver saw us and asked where we were going. We all encored Korigadh, thanks to our ulti luck, that he was also going the same way. He asked us to enter from the open rear end. The truck was carrying bags containing cement on which we rested our asses. The whole hitch-hike feel gave an outta the world high. I have been wanting to do this for sooooo long (superlative again…saying real long) and finally I got the opportunity to hitch-hike my way to my destination.The road to Korigadh was brilliant with all the zig-zag curves and me gaping the breathtaking view of the water body flowing through the mammoth mountains.We got off the truck and saw a hand pump at the corner of the road. It was a small village. We quenched our thirst drawing water from the hand pump. More than quenching thirst the idea of drinking water from the hand pump was a brilliant feeling.Finally we were there at the foothills of Korigadh. The hill looked sooooper steep with around 70 degree inclination. The trek looked almost next to impossible. We went ahead passing some mini streams but still hadn’t found a way to trek up. After exploring a lil’ more we all shouted in unison, this way!!! Pointing to the way which we hoped will lead to the top.Finally we were above the planes, the plane had taken off. The whole fort feel had already started as we came across caves carved in the mountain. There were brilliantly flowing waterfalls all along the way. We were actually walking on the stream for some part of the trek. We had reached two third of our way where we took our first stop. The view from this place actually compelled us to take a halt. The world looked sooooooper tiny from here, overlooking the lake dodging its way through the Herculean mountains, and just cant tell u enough the zillion different shades of green, the soooooper refreshing breeze. The whole view looked picture perfect, I could have gazed it for hours together. After half an hour more of the trek we were finally at the top. There was this huge plane land at the top covered by the lushest(of course superlative of lush…origin Rishabh’s world) greenest grass ever. Walked ahead and saw two big ponds and my craziness had no bounds. What an amazingly outta the world reward, trek all the way to the top and to shoo away the fatigue you get two brilliant ponds waiting for you to dive in. Without wasting much time we stripped (waitin did I say strip… partially of course) and swooped into the water body. There was this miniature island kinda formation in the middle of the pond, and decided to conquer that. Swam all the way to the island and for a minute thought that I had actually defeated Shivaji. I was the uncrowned king for that moment. After getting exhausted with the water fights, swimming, and other stoooooopid water play we decided to tour the rest of the fort. Now that I was the King of the fort, I owned it, I had to go out on inspection as to see if everything was in place. We started walking on the periphery of the fort, one slip and straight down the hill. It actually wasn’t that scary as I am sounding. We reached a place to which I named the panorama point. The panoramic view from there was breathtaking. By now the black clouds were approaching us. Just then we got to see an amazingly brilliant thing. The clouds came rushing, banged against the mountain and changing its course. What a scene!!!! Surrounded by the clouds it felt like we were floating with them. It all seemed sooooo surreal.By now we were all sooooooper hungry, hogged whatever we had. The black clouds showed their magic, because of the rain it became even more chilly. After lazing there for long we started our tour of the fort again, walking at the periphery all around the mountain. There came a place where we could see the whole of the Amby valley, all the bungalows, swimming pools, golf course, lakes, brilliant curvy roads, even Sahara’s runway strip.It was getting dark, so we decided to trek down. This time the route was different, excitement of the unknown was still alive. Finally we reached the hand pump where we had started from. A brilliantly crazy idea struck us, brilliant in my eyes, may be ulti stoooooopid in the world’s eye. I had to play snakes n ladders sitting on the main road. So there we were all friends almost lying on the main road playing snakes n ladders. Isn’t that a oh my goodness!!!! experience? It sure is. That’s one my most satisfying freakish act I must admit. I sooooooo hope that the freakish demented side of me never subsides.Time for a clichéd, as all great things come to an end so did my sooooooooper eventful n exciting day, full of ulti stooooopid activities ended.