Kalwanti Durg - The Thorny Adventure

The Thorny Adventure.
 
4th June 2005
 
Like every other weekend, we were trying to fix up a spot.
We considered a number of treks - Peb, Tikona, Tung etc.
I was not in favor of tikona, since I had been there last week.
There was a group of friends going to Rajmachi, but I had done that just last month. Plus it was a 2 day trek and a single day was what I was keen on.
 
The next spot was Peb, where my friend wanted to go along with a big group.
Then we realized that we had not been to Kalwanti Durg and started to look out for routes. There was almost zero information about the route. Kalwanti had been noticed by us earlier on the Prabalgad trek. So it was decided to go to Kalwanti Durg on Saturday. I called up my cousin who was interested, having finished his HSC exam and nothing much to do at home. :)  
It turned out to be an (mis)adventure in a weird sense of a way.
 
The three of us decided to meet at Thane S.T. Stand near the station. We were late by about 5 mins and had missed the first bus to Panvel.
There were a number of other options available. We took the NMMT bus to Panvel from CIDCO bus stop. I slept throughout the journey from Thane to Panvel. I was tired, having watched a late night movie on Friday.
 
At Panvel, the bus going towards Chowk was available 8:30, so we took a ride in a six-seater till Shedung Phata. At Shedung, we had a wada-pav and a hot cup of tea each. Then we took a share - rickshaw till Vardoli. On the way, we stopped at Belavli to buy some water. I purchased 4 bottles of water. Better safe than sorry. Having been to Prabalgad twice in 2005, I and my friend were both completely familiar with the route to Prabalmachi. This route is steep. When you go along this route, you will notice that there are electric wires overhead. If you do not see the wires, then you
have missed the route. Within minutes we were gasping for breath and having sips of water. It is a steep route, and we hadn't expected the blazing hot sun. It was hardly 9:00 am in the morning and the weather was hot. This route goes zig-zag towards Prabalmachi. The edges of the route are marked with trees with white bark. If you stand at the small hamlet near Thakurwadi (Vardoli), you should be able to spot the route by looking at these trees.
 
We reached Prabalmachi at 10:30 and came to know that the hamlet under Kalwantidurg is called Thakurwadi. We followed the electric wires going towards the hamlet. On the way, I noticed a cattle skull and some cattle bones. It is well known that the area around Prabalgad is inhabited by wild-animals. There are leopards roaming in the area. So far none of the leopards have turned into man-eaters, but they do prey upon domestic animals once in a while. This kill seemed to be very old judging from the
carcass.
 
 
I picked up the cattle skull and placed it in a better position for a photograph, but a thorn pricked my index finger.

Cattle Skull

 Next to the cattle skull were cattle bones.

Cattle Bones

 
The going route was pretty much smooth and we didn’t encounter any problem to reach the village of Thakurwadi. The route had some clearings in between, but it was always possible to pick up the route from the clearing. Along the way, there were a lot of wild berries (“karwanda”) and we had our fill. I also managed to get pricked in my hand, my arm and my face with thorns while picking those berries. The pricks were minor, except for one branch that missed by eye. The berries were very tasty.
 
Some part of the forests had been razed to the ground. Probably forest fire or something.
 
 
Along the way, we noticed a rock with an arrow pointing towards a hill and realized it was another route to Prabalgad. Then we proceeded onto the village and put our sacks down at the first hut that we saw. The local tribals (“adivasis”) were kind enough to give us water and also made some tea for us. The tea was sugarless and milkless. So it turned out to be tasteless. No complaints so far. However I hope that going forward we would make it a point to carry
sugar, milk powder and tea in our sacks.

 
 
There were chickens in the porch and I clicked some snaps of the mother hen feeding on rice. Then there was a dog who I treated to a biscuit. This dog grew rather fond of me and started to lick my ear.

Dog Licking my ear 

 
The chap who was the owner of the dog, came along with us to show us the route. The route was full of scree, slippery and steep, with some loose rocks in between. It was bordered on one side by Karvee stalks on both sides. After trekking on this route for a while, we reached the steps of the fort. The steps are wide and tall. Each step is about 2 ½ feet in distance. There is a ridge between Kalwanti and Prabal. You need to traverse along this ridge. On the Prabalside, the villager showed us a tunnel which led into a cavern. It was pitch dark inside the cavern. When I lit my torch, I noticed some bats in the corner.
 
Once we reached the steps, it was a fairly easy route. However Sairam wanted to deviate a bit and he crossed over to a ledge. The route to the ledge was a thin crack and it was totally exposed. The fall would have probably been about 30 – 40 feet. Sanket attempted to cross the ledge, but then he lost his nerve. It was a good thing that he did not cross over. Coming back from the ledge was slightly scary as well.

So back to the stair case. Apart from that, there were a few more times where we left the security of the steps to see the water-tanks. The water-tanks were totally dry and dusty. We were carrying sufficient water with us.
 
Once we reached the base of the pinnacle. (To call this a pinnacle would probably be an insult to other pinnacles around it), we put down our sacks and roamed freely.  We went around till its southern most point. Its interesting to see that there is a smaller cliff next to the pinnacle. There was a piton stuck in that cliff, which had a ring around it. I grabbed the ring and attempted to scale the wall. I realized that it would be foolish to do so. So I stopped and climbed down. Then there was another botched attempt from the sides, which would have been even more stupider. Finally the safe route and all of us were on the top.

 
From the top, you can see Mhasmal, Chanderi and Peb in the distance. You can also see Matheran.
 
Coming back down was fast, since the steps are quite big. We reached the village of Thakurwadi and then had to proceed towards Prabalmachi. This is where we managed to get lost. We didn’t find any of the yellow chalk marks that we had made on our way. We got entangled in a number of thorny bushes. Both my arms, my legs and my face had been pricked countless times by now. The saving grace on this misadventure was that we had a lot of berries to pluck. There were times, when we came to the very edge of the cliff with nowhere further to go.
 
We finally managed to find the cattle skull and the electric wires.that had been over-head. Somehow we reached the temple at Prabalmachi. We had somehow missed the opening that led to Vardoli, while following the electric wires. Then we headed back to Vardoli. Vardoli has some farms, where lilies are grown. These farms looked beautiful. Unfortunately the lilies were not in full bloom yet. Maybe another trip during the monsoon and it will be fun.

 
 
 
 
 
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