It was the
eve of Makar Sankranti 2011 & the city was busy with kite flying activities
all around. We had fun time flying kites during our office hours on office
terrace with friends. In the meantime we were working up with a plan for
overnight bike trip somewhere nearby & I remembered my cousin Tarun mentioning
to me about a fantastic natural getaway called Karnala Bird Sanctuary just
closeby to Panvel. I suggested the place to Shailesh/Anand & they were ok
with the destination. The trip was actually a send-off trip for our good friend
cum ex-colleague Ankit Maheshwari who now resides in Indore, Madhya Pradesh
& had come to Mumbai just a week ago for our Annual office Trip. However
the bugger was busy kite flying with our other friends & confused was
himself if he could join for his farewell trip or not since they were having a
gala time kite flying at borivali. The other friends (Tirath & Pratik) were
supposed to join us too but they backed out & even asked us to cancel the
trip & instead enjoy kite flying the entire next day at their place in
borivali. But we denied & Finally Ankit agreed to join us & trip was
all set.
We left for
home after office & decided to meet at panvel station by 12.00 am. I came
home, got some info about Karnala Bird Sanctuary off the internet, packed my
bag with basic stuff, had dinner & left home at about 10.00 pm on my bike.
Shailesh had already left by then & reached Panvel before all of us. The
others i.e Anand, Tushar & Ankit came to panvel via local train after 12.30
am & we all were grouped. We just had two bikes & five of us so
Shailesh volunteered to take Tushar & Ankit as triple seat since his
Pulsar’s seat was bigger enough as opposed to my FZ’s seat. We left Panvel station
& stopped by soon at the NH17 & NH4 junction for some refreshments.
Most of us were hungry so we ordered a lot of food at an overnight dhaba type
hotel there & ate to our hearts content over stupid jokes & fun filled laughter’s
pulling each other’s legs. Finally we were done eating by 2.00 am, the bill was
settled by & we moved out of the hotel just to notice that the place was
buzzing with activity all around. Many shops were open adjacently to the hotel
& herds of people pouring in even at this lonely hour surprised us. It
looked like this was an all night open restaurant & travelers took refuge
here before moving ahead.
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| Dinner at the restaurant - Anand is shying away as he was asked to pay the bill |
Tummies full & we were feeling lazy/sleepy to ride further especially since the climate got way to cooler by then as mercury level dropped. Shailesh suggested we settle down there itself in the verandah of a small closed shop & get some rest before moving ahead to Karnala bird sanctuary which was just 15 odd kms away & shall not take us more than 20 minutes to reach there. His suggestion seemed viable taking into consideration none of us had an idea what to anticipate at the start point of Karnala sanctuary at this hour. Further, this place where we were standing at the moment looked absolutely safe and sound as lots of civilized people around poured in every few minutes in their vehicles. So we settled in.
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| Ready for an experience which thousands of mumbaikars go through daily night. SLEEPING ON FOOTPATHS/CLOSED SHOPS |
Now it was time to get some rest, but who can take a respite when we have a wonderful day ahead of us. I tried to close the eyes for a while but just couldn’t sleep & so was the case with others too except Shailesh who I guess managed to steal a few minutes for him to rest in tranquility. So it was time for rest of us to start fooling around with camera, pass jokes & torture Tushar by pulling his leg with some of our fundamental non sense bits and pieces which cannot be mentioned here J
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| Deep Asleep - Shailesh |
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| Half Asleep - Ankit, Mitesh & Anand |
It was well past 4.00 am & we decided to start up a bon-fire as it was getting colder by the minute as anticipated by us & hence before the trip, I was specifically asked to get some kerosene from home for bonfire & luckily I didn’t forget to get it before leaving home. So the firewood was collected effortlessly from neighboring places after some wandering around, kerosene was poured in & fire was lit.. Voila!! My first bonfire since childhood. J The fire lasted well for a minute & then began to phase out. We suspected the issue is with firewood which isn’t burning well so poured in some more kerosene from the bottle & bonfire was healthy again just for a minute, before phasing out again. Shailesh checked out the bottle of kerosene, smelled it & finally concluded with following sentence
“ Saale, tu Phenyl laya hai kerosene nahi” (Dude, you’ve brought Phenyl, not kerosene)
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| Shailesh - Trying hard to fuel the bonfire :) |
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| I do it my way |
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| & its working |
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| The last few drops of phenyl used |
Everyone started laughing at my stupidity but we had a fun time using up all that phenyl to maintain the bon fire for few more minutes before it went out completely. We covered up the remains of bonfire with sand for safety & decided to leave the place as it was already close to 5.00 am by then.
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| A localite - Happy to click with us.. & Anand was amused, dont know why |
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| Shailesh - Ready 2 leave |
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| How cold it was.. The helmet visors were condensed |
The hotel was still open so we had a cup of nice hot tea, relieved ourselves off the early morning nature’s call in the filthy little toilet of hotel & left the place.
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| Last pics before leaving |
I took the lead & got on NH17 with shailesh following me. The early morning cold temperature was bone chilling & Anand was sitting pillion with me on the smooth single lane NH17. The roads were inviting me to rip my bike & feel the chill down the spine but Anand was not used to travelling on bikes back then, infact he was frightened with high speeds on bike so he asked me to stay below 50’s but I could barely stay below double that speed J With constant ripping at speeds of 90-100 kmph for few minutes, I knew I left Shailesh way too far behind so I pulled over to the side of the road & called him up. The place where we stopped was utterly amazing, beautiful, lonely & scary as hell with a silent curvy road surrounded by trees & hills all over & infinite stars shining above our head for as long as our eyes could see. We just kept admiring the beauty of the place & acknowledged a fact that we should have had our girlfriends here as it was a perfect romantic setup on a bloody cold night. Meanwhile, I kept calling Shailesh & after few attempts he answered & informed me that they’ve reached the gate of Karnala Bird Sanctuary & they never overtook me, which means I’m far ahead from the destination & I require to return back to them. So we got back on the bike & made a quick U-turn. Luckily we didn’t overshoot the destination by much distance & I saw the other three waiting for us. They were amused as to how could I miss the big entrance of Karnala Bird sanctuary with so many boards around right on the road, but I wasn’t so surprised since I knew I was busy enjoying the early morning speedy dash on NH17 paying all the due attention just on road.
It was just before 6.00 & the official park entry time was not before 7.00 am so we were forced to wait at the park gate. Meanwhile Shailesh decided to attend his nature’s call right beside the road somewhere in the dark woods & we made a lot of fun out of it teasing him all throughout. Slowly the atmosphere started to brighten up as 7.00 am approached & the lazy gatekeepers arrived after a bit of delay.
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| Still dark when we reached at the gate |
We paid the entry tickets, parked our bikes in the parking lot & we were the first to enter the park followed by a few other bird photographers & a pair of love birds (of which, the girl was absolute cutie)
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| Clicked a pic of map just in case we get lost :) |
After a short 2 minutes walk inside the park, there is a right turn indicating a broken & difficult path through jungle to the fort & as naturally expected, we drifted to right rather than staying on the normal course. Pravin (our other friend-cum-colleague) who was also supposed to join us for the trip had promised me that he’ll meet us directly at panvel early morning but didn’t answer my call when we left the panvel hotel, he finally called me & apologized that he had overslept. I assured him that he can still make it to the trip if he hurries up & he can easily meet us by 10 am & we shall have an entire day ahead of us. He agreed to leave his house in Kalyan ASAP & keep me updated with his location. With the cheerfulness of one more member of our group joining us soon in this beautiful place, we moved ahead into the jungle.
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| An abandoned structure on the way made of wood.. |
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| A round podium - we made it Sumo wrestling ring |
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| Guess the pose :)
Few random clicks on the way
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The stroll through the jungle path was pleasant with early morning ambiance & chirping of few intermittent birds on the way. After a reasonably extended hike into the trail, we realized we hadn’t gained any height & we were just walking on flat paths. The pinnacle of the fort was visible every now & then amidst the trees. Shailesh finally gave in & declared we were wide of the mark & need to return back but I was adamant not to do so. I wanted to trek a few minutes more into the jungle before finally calling off the trek as everyone seemed tired already & the pinnacle looked far from reach now. So I asked them to rest where they stood while I ventured a bit ahead. Anand decided to accompany me but he was exhausted as well so I asked him to slow down his pace for a while as I sped off ahead. After a few more minutes, I gave up too as it was undoubtedly evident that I was walking on a horizontal trail & not gaining any elevation & this is without a doubt not how an ascending uphill trek is supposed to be. So I turned back, met Anand mid way & regrouped with the remaining three of us resting at the original spot. We halted there a while too & then decided to depart back via the same trail that we had taken to come here. I was dissatisfied for not being able to conclude the trek & hence I was craving to trek uphill from the normal route once we reach to the main gate but reaching there would take us additional hour or even more & no idea how much longer it would take from normal route to trek to the fort. Everyone seemed exhausted already due to a sleepless night & a more than 2 hour trek already so we were skeptical about further trek from normal route & decided to leave the decision for later. Meanwhile, Shailesh kept insisting he knew exactly where we missed the turn for uphill trek & I secretly kept hoping he was right. Luckily, as it turned out he was right indeed. We reached that turn which we had missed earlier & went straight ahead so we took that turn & decided to give it a go.
The final trek from correct path started at approximately 9.45 am & as expected, this was indeed a difficult trail with steep difficult climbs amidst dense trees, age old strong rock walls, loose soil at places & sharp ascend throughout. We were gaining altitude rapidly & loosing stamina at twice over the speed.
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| A small break on steep ascend |
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| How happy i was since we were on the right track |
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| Ant house |
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| Raw seeds/scrubs on my track pants while trekking |
We all were tired but the sense of finally rambling through the right path kept us motivated & after a swift uphill trek of just over half an hour, with few petite breaks in between, we made it. Nope, we didn’t reach the top yet, we just reached a spot where the difficult trail bisected the easier trail & from there onwards it was just one trail all the way uphill to the fort which was additionally a kilometer ahead
Pravin had reached the base of Karnala by then on his bike & I directed him to take the normal route uphill & we shall meet him right midway. We rested right there for a while & could see a lot of groups of trekkers, including children trekking uphill via the normal route. We inquired with a few of them & were surprised to know that it took them just under an hour to reach that point from the gate, while it took us just under 3 hours because of our unnecessary adventure filled wandering. Tushar had to leave as he had some urgent office work & no matter how hard we tried to convince him, he didn’t budge & finally we had to see him off @ approx. 11.00 am.
We were sitting right on the trail over few small rocks watching the passer by trekkers zoom ahead in full glory until one particular guy from a group of trekker commented watching me resting peacefully on a rock & his comments shook me a bit. He said to his fellow trek mate
“ Hey bagh, hyachya Tshirt var kay challay” ( See what’s going on this guy’s Tshirt) & as he said that, I took the necessary pain to turn back by neck to have a view over my shoulder on the right side & I was surprised to see my entire white tshirt was randomly black & white with distinguishably more black than white. The surprising thing was that the black part was constantly moving all over my tshirt & it took just a few milliseconds to understand that these black parts were nothing but actually a group of big black carpenter ants. I was instantly in somewhat panic mode as I felt the tickle of some of those adamant ants somehow making it through my tshirt & crawling on the bare skin beneath. As an immediate reaction, I removed my tshirt is a record time, got rid of my vest too & shailesh/anand/Ankit helped to dust off the ants from my tshirt. Suddenly I was stung badly on my lower back as I realized the ants were all over my black track pants too. I managed to wipe a few ants off my track pants but didn’t want to risk any more of those bad stings below my waist so I immediately got the towel from my bag to cover up myself & got rid of the track pants too. Suddenly it felt like I was stripped off most of my clothes by a group of bad a** angry carpenter ants, who decided to take a march as a form of mass protest against me, since it appeared that I was resting my silly a** too close to their restricted area & no trespassing was allowed. Luckily I had a pair of extra clothes, so I put them on & dumped the Ant infected clothes in my bag. The entire episode just took a few minutes & I bet the trekkers passing by were amused as to what this half naked idiot was upto. After the entire episode was over, we all shared a hefty laughter while still awaiting for Pravin to reach us.
Bored to death, I & Anand decided to trek downhill & see if Pravin was on right path or not although he assured us on phone that he was trekking on correct path. After a few minutes trek downhill, I casually shouted Pravin’s name as no one was around & a mild reply in form of my name came back immediately. It was Pravin, who was just a few 100 meters away. We ran downhill & finally grouped with him. It took us a few more minutes to climb uphill again where Shailesh/Ankit were waiting for us & thereon, it was a simple trek ahead for half an hour right till the bottom of the fort by 12.15 pm.
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| First view of the thumb like Pinnacle mountain |
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| What a view - wish i had a better camera. All the pics are clicked from my Nokia E71 camera since the only digital camera had dead batteries by start of the trek in morning |
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| 1 final break |
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| Fort structure |
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| @ the entrance stairs 2 the fort |
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| View from the fort stairs |
The fort was more or less in ruins as predictable for most of the forts in Maharashtra but nevertheless the 360 degrees adjoining view of lush green forest & strong gushing winds in afternoon sun were blissful. We somehow made it through many trekking groups to the edge of a cave & there was no possible way to go further. We decided to rest a while on this small patch of rocks of about 2-3 feet wide with a sheer drop of approximately 20 feet on one side & a cave full of water on the other side. Anand even managed to sleep sitting right there without any fear of falling down.The Kumbhkaran was actually sleeping so peacefully that his loud irritating snoring could be heard from a mile away. Unfortunately I couldn't click any pics as my cell was dead too by then.
After a brief 15-20 minutes break, we decided to leave as it was already past noon & all of us were quite hungry & nothing is available to eat out there. We ate whatever snacks we had, drank the fresh cool water from the cave reservoirs & decided to trek downhill after spending few additional minutes to survey the remaining part of the thumb like pinnacle of the mountain with numerous carved in caves.
The trek downhill was simple & fun filled via the easy route & we made it to the gate of karnala bird sanctuary in just over an hour. It was a quick ride from there to panvel station where we had a few snacks, drinks before finally seeing off Anand & Ankit who took local train. Pravin, myself & Shailesh resumed back on our respective bikes & sped off to our respective homes soon after exchanging goodbyes. I reached home just about 5.00 pm & went straight to bed. It was a short & sweet memorable bike ride-cum-trek filled up with lots of amazing memories.
INFORMATION FOR FELLOW TRAVELLERS
Place:
Karnala Bird Sanctuary & Fort
General Description:
The sanctuary covers an area of around 4.27sq.kms and is also reckoned as a paradise for trekkers due to the presence of various hills in the area. It is home to over 150 resident bird species and about 37 types of avian migrants.
The sanctuary is also famous for the Karnala fort, which is situated within the sanctuary. The fort is situated at an altitude of 475metres and was constructed in 12th century. The fort has a very rich historical past and thus is turning out to be a favorite place of tourists. The sanctuary is an ideal place for bird watching as well as for trekking.
Trekking can be dangerous in the rainy season so it can be done in the rest of the year. While climbing the fort you come across many species of birds in nature. River Patalganga is towards the east of the fort. Greenery covers and surrounds the fort of Karnala.
Park Area:
About 4.27 square.kilometers.
Best Period to visit:
September to March.
How to reach:
Karnala Bird Sanctuary is 50 kms from Mumbai, on the Mumbai-Goa Highway, NH-17. It is recommended to go there in own vehicle as it is just a short drive via Panvel. Once you take the Mumbai-goa highway NH17 from panvel, keep looking on the left side after few kms & the sanctuary entrance gate shall be hard to miss.
Harbour Railway trains from VT Station to Panvel are regularly run within few minutes. Panvel station is just 15 km from the sanctuary; from here you can catch autorickshaws, taxis and buses. State Transport buses run from Mumbai Central to Karnala.
Entry Fees:
Adults - Rs.20/- per person
Children - Rs.15/- per child
Parking Two Wheelers - Rs.15/-
Small Four Wheelers - Rs50/-
Some Important Notes:
Please do not litter the beautiful wildlife sanctuary with wastes (especially plastic waste).
Please do not harm the wildlife inside the sanctuary
Be careful with monkeys/langoors as they can snatch away the bags with foodstuffs
Carry enough food/water/energy bars as there are no shops once you enter the park.
Camping overnight without permissions is illegal & punishable offence. Wildlife can be dangerous with wildcats like leopards around. (While entering the sanctuary in morning, We had encountered a group of four people being fined Rs 500 per person who trekked overnight at the sanctuary)
Be careful with honeycombs which can be encountered at intervals throughout the trail especially at the pinnacle.
Always trek in group to avoid any possibility of loot, dacoits.
Carry a swiss/army/all purpose knife.
Plan early morning trek & early return preferably before 6 pm in evening especially if you are using public transport since it becomes difficult to find transport to return back to panvel in evening.
Have a safe trek.
Trip Summary
Date - 16th January 2011
Riders - Shailesh, Anand, Tushar, Ankit, Pravin & ME.
Bikes - Bajaj pulsar 135, Bajaj pulsar 150, Yamaha FZ-16 LE
Route taken/Destinations covered - Marine lines -> Thane -> Panvel -> Karnala bird sanctuary & back via same route except thane.
Major Highways taken - NH3, NH4 & NH17
Total Kms covered - Smallest trip so far with around 170 kms.
