Trek to Koraigad & Kune Falls

We college friends after studying together for almost 4 years finally decided to go out at least somewhere to have fun. Harshal thought that going for a trek is a wonderful idea. Moment everybody got this news they got thrilled to the core. Since it was the first time that Bhakti and Sushba would be trekking, harshal thought that Koiragad would be the right location for these girls to trek since it is one of the easiest treks. However these girls now refuse to accept that it was the easiest given that they had to literally drain a lot of energy, it wasn’t Koraigad fort though who played a baddie, it was the Kune Falls.

Our day started a little late as the car that we hired came almost an hour late as it usually happens with Indian cabbies. We then started at around 8:30am in the morning then suddenly one of us remembered that we were not carrying our cameras. We then had to turn back to get the camera which gave Bhakti and Sush an opportunity to ask for some munchies. Finally we started at 9:30am and in just an hour’s time we had already reached Lonavala exit on the Expressway. Harshal was in fumes as I asked the driver to take the second Lonavala exit from the Express Way, he had suggested that to get to Koraigad we had to take the first Lonavala exit from the Expressway. Nevertheless it didn’t take Bhakti long to make Harshal realize that we had come for fun and it hardly matter if we travel some kilometers extra. Aah, my life was saved!!! :D

We then reached Peth Village after seeking help from people in Lonavala (if we knew it lies on the same road to Amby valley perhaps we could reached a little faster). Peth village is the base for Koraigad Fort (“gad” itself is called as fort in “Marathi”). At first we were unable to locate the path for the fort and thus we had to take help from the villagers there. We all were looking intently whether we could locate the fort on the top of mountain but could not trace anything. Madhu with his witty attitude tried to shoo and bully a sheep nearby (just for fun!!! :D) which aggravated the caretaker of the sheep to provide us a wrong route. Soon it was discovered that Sush had come with her pair of heels for trekking which made Harshal donate his pair of footwear to Bhakti, who in turn gave her footwear to Sush. Wow! What a connection that was!

Since Sush had difficulty to walk I accompanied her all the way. As soon as we started for the trek, girls started feeling the heat and as a result they got exhausted even before we reached the steps for Koraigad. Once the steps started, we could see the great fort surrounded by greenery from all the sides. We thought summiting the mountain and reaching the fort would be a daunting task but then eventually it turned out to be very easy as we had to just climb the stairs, though we halted several times to rest. (You are required to climb a total of 585 small and big steps to reach the fort.)

Soon when we climbed the steps we could see a huge entrance get in front, we then quickly clicked some snaps.There was a small face carving opposite the entrance of the Fort which was quite unusual, wondered why it must have been there. Nature provided a perfect ambiance; the view was absolutely mesmerizing with awesome landscapes on one side and beautiful Amby Valley on the other side. There were few small ponds of water also on the fort. It seems Amby Valley owns Koraigad Fort as we could see spot lights which focus the mountains in the night and we also spotted some security guards at the top of the fort. (Very atypical as we have not seen government keeping any guards on any such sites)

There was greenery all around. It was so calm and pleasing, aah! I wish I just could stay here for a day or two and put a campfire. Rain God too was in high spirits, he started pouring his blessings on us. It took only 5 minutes for us to get wet. It was real fun since we were enjoying the nature’s milieu. Finally after spending quality time we decided to climb down as we had to go and experience fog which we had seen on the Tiger Point in the morning while going towards Koraigad. Coming down was not a problem and it just took half an hour to reach the base. It was around 02:00pm when we immediately left to see Tiger point and to our disappointment there was no fog at all. We still waited in the hope that it would at least rain but no luck. Finally we had to move as hunger took a toll on us. We then came to Kumar Resort for our lunch. We had to wait for some half an hour since the Restaurant was under renovation and was already full with so many people waiting outside.

After we had our lunch, we left to see the Kune falls. Kune falls were very difficult to locate. We had asked few people but they hardly had any idea about it. We only knew that it is close to or on the way towards Kune Missionary. Then after lots of investigation and some pilot trips by Harshal and Madhu, we found the way towards the waterfall. Since Harshal and Madhu had already reached the falls Sush, Bhakti, Rahul and I had to find out our own way towards the falls though Harshal was giving me instructions over the phone. The way towards the waterfall was very difficult and I had to literally hold Sush and take her. She was so sweet that she didn’t even complaint and continued even after skidding twice. We had to form a chain so that it would become easy to climb the rocks up and down. Unfortunately Sush slipped again which led her fully worn out. She could not come till the end of waterfall and had to settle only with the pictures that we took. The efforts were worth, the fall was spectacular and we all were very ecstatic to see it. We then clicked some pictures at the mouth of waterfall. We then could not resist ourselves to get into the waterfall. It was fun, the force of water was tremendous, if we would found ourselves in its path then we would have directly fall down 100fts. It was getting dark so wanted to move on fast. In the dark it would have been nearly impossible to climb those rocks. This time with Harshal’s help we were able to rescue out Sush and get back to our base that was a bridge near Kune Missionary where we had parked our car. At around 08:00pm in the night we started our journey back and reached CBD Belapur in an hour’s time.