Trekking in Tungareshwar!

On Saturday, me and my friend decided that we go out and do some trekking...So, we planned a lot, searched places that is nearby and that can be covered in one day and we found a place called Tungareshwar, pretty close to Mumbai. (Please click on the title to check out the snaps of this place)

So, on Sunday, with some food materials and with full enthu, we started to this place at 0630hrs itself! We had to catch local to Vasai Road (2 stations before Virar) and from there we had to catch a bus to Khaman village but have to get down at a stop called Tungareshwar Phata!

Andheri to Vasai Road took around 40mins and from there, luckily a bus was about to leave to Khaman village (not sure about its timings) and we got into it. The ST bus took around 20mins to drop us down at the Phata. From there, our journey began!

We walked around a mile (have to cross the Western Express Highway - Highway that connects Mumbai and Ahamedabad) before we hit the gate of the Tungareshwar Sanctuary! (This place has been declared as Sanctuary in 2003)...From there, we had to walk around 3kms to hit the first checkpoint, which is a 100-year old Shiv mandir!

The 3kms path was pretty rocky but not any tough one! In between we got lot of small waterfalls and yeah, we got to see only one wild animal - The Reddish brown Crab!! These crabs can be found in all sizes, right from big daddies to very small kiddies! :)

Finally, after 30-40 mins of our trek, we reached this temple! The temple is very good, neatly maintained and looking at it, no one can say it is 100-year old! The best part of this shiv mandir is that you can carry milk/coconut water and do 'abhisheka' of that lingam! Even I touched the lingam, which I find very rare in India, where people are allowed to touch the god's idol...may be, this is a 'Udbhava murthi'!

Fine...after spending some time in the temple, we set out to go to our real trekking...climbing 2000ft of hill, 7kms trekking to reach Sadanand Maharaj Ashram! We started at 0950hrs from there and wow, what a path it was...it was a ghat section but very very rocky path...again, the icing on the cake was heavy rains due to which there was a very heavy fog formation! Visibility was dead down, I can put it as 20mtrs only....Sometimes we felt as if we are walking in between the clouds!! :) [Also, at some point of time, I felt very insecure because we two were the only 2 living beings walking in between the forest...no other living signs found...so, even if someone/some animal attacked us, then...baat hi kuch alag hota!!]

After we thought the journey is never ending, at around 1200hrs, we reached the peak of the hill! But the problem was we still did not find that ashram! and the best thing was till now, we encountered all UP paths and now, we were suddenly seeing DOWN paths!!

But having no other go, we continued in the same path but the fear of losing the path was rising...suddenly, a big bell sound came from right! and god, it was a big relief, a welcome sound for us! We went into the ashram, where at last, we found some humans! This ashram is nothing big to boast of, contains an office building, a stage, the office building and small houses...didn’t see the Sadanand Maharaj swamy though...but hats of them where they have constructed these buildings in that peak place! :)

Finally, we kept an ETA of 1.5hrs to reach down and started at 1430hrs..We took another path (that will lead to Virar), so called short distance (around 5kms!) and man! this path was more rocky and more slippery than the path we used for climbing. Met some fellow trekkers in between and the common question both the parties had was: 'still how long to go?' and 'still how much time it will take'! :o) We beat our ETA and descended down in 2.5hrs! Luckily, we got a shared auto to drop us to the Western express highway from where without much wait, got a ST bus to Virar station! And our final leg of this trekking was to catch 1620hrs Churchgate fast local that dropped us in Andheri at 1710hrs!

All in all, great day and great trekking to remember...When I look back now, I still cherish those memories, the rendezvous with the nature, with the hills! It was just awesome! Think lot of places are left in this small world to be discovered and hope in the coming days, I cover some part of it...