The Life aheadPersonal Blog of Ratish Naroor

Its been some time my friends (Sreeram,Ravi,Mahesh ) and myself planning for Harishchandragad which is said to be a pilgrimage for the trekkers. We decided to start on Saturday morning.
We started at eight in the morning and reached kalyan station at ten. We had to catch a bus to a place called Kubi Phatta which is the starting point of the trek. We had to walk for half an hour to reach the bottom of the mountain and from there started the real climb through the 600ft vertical rock patch. There was a big team returning and everybody were giving us their explanation of how the trek is going to be. Some said its two hours walk but some said its gonna be easy for youngsters like us. It took us almost five hours to reach to the top. It was really a tough and challenging terrain to climb up. And it was a great feeling to reach the top after the tedious climb. There is a temple atop Harishchandragad which gives the trekkers a place to rest and stay the night. We had a dabba setup by Tukaram Bhoire who makes food for the trekkers and live there with his family.

The night was really cold and we managed to setup the sleeping place with whatever woolen cloths we had and it was not sufficient to fight the cold there. Woke up at six because we had to see two places in the near by areas. Konkan Kada being the main attraction at harishchandragad and we headed to that point which took us around half an hour to reach the place. It was a marvelous view from there. The whole mountain has a serpent structure due to the wind blowing there and the rocks breaking in an incremental manner. Its really a beautiful view from there.
The next destination was the shiv ling below the temple called kedareshwar. The 5 foot shiv ling was placed in the center of a cave which is filled with ice cold water all around the structure.

At about ten we started back to the city. We took the second path to reach the city which is not that difficult as compared to the path we took the previous day and is more scenic. We had to walk around five kms through that route and need to catch the bus at two at noon. We managed to get the bus and headed back to Kasara , from where the local trains head to Mumbai city. Reached Nerul back at 10 .
This trek for me can be said once in a lifetime experience and never expected that I could have reach at top with this ease. I am too lucky to the best group to trek with, who had the same enthusiasm that I had.
The snaps can be viewed here.

It was our first team outing from Fugro Intersite and the destination was Kelva Beach resort for one day and night stay. Kelva beach is around 3 hours drive from Navi Mumbai .We started at 9 30 am from Vashi and reached Kelva by one in the afternoon. The resort was quite nice and the best part was the ambience we had there. No noise from the outside world and the cool cottages. The beach was just a few steps from the resort and it was a low tide beach. We had to walk for fifteen minutes to reach the sea water. We played a lot of cricket and a little cycling on the beach. The two kids smart Anouska and too smart little Yash made the trip more enjoyable and fun filled. I really had a nice time being far from the crowded city life.
The snaps of the trip can be viewed here .