We had decided on family outing with two of my friends. Two of my tennis partners also joined and a plan was made to have a family outing in Mahabaleshwar. The best part about developed hill stations like Mahabaleshwar is that they have excellent hotels, food and loads of activities for all age groups. All the kids were very excited about the trip. They were eagerly waiting for Saturday to arrive and start the trip.
We started off in 5 cars at 7 in the morning. We took the old Katraj tunnel route and the drive was smooth. After a small break for food after the tunnel, all the cars drove off to Mahabaleshar. Being off season, there was less traffic as we approached Panchgani. This made the drive even more pleasant on the ghats.
Once we reached the Valley View resort, everyone hit the swimming pool. It was a temperature controlled indoor swimming pool. So, there was no worry of either rains or the cold weather outside. The kids enjoyed the company of each other and elders enjoyed a game of water polo.
Now it was time to have lunch. The lunch was excellent and had lots of variety. It was difficult to choose what to eat at any point of time.
The hotel had a superb view of the valley from its top floor. We started with a round of 'Judgment' card game and after a few rounds the weather outside started changing. The clouds were coming towards us and in no time the entire hotel was engulfed in the clouds. So, we decided to take a walk in tha hotel's garden outside. We next decided to go to the Venna lake.
When we reached there, the entire place was covered in fog and visibility was hardly few meters. We hired 3 boats and went for boating. It was just magical to boat when there was hardly anything else visible around. Myself and Dharam, tried out hands at boating. It was quite a task to get the row move the way it should in the water. Deepal and Kalpak also tried their hands and it was lots of fun.
All the kids took a round of horse riding. after having corn butta at the lake, we headed off back to the town. It was dark by now and the market was bustling with people. It was difficult to believe that there are so many people in Mahabaleshwar in this off-season. The ladies did lots of shopping and the kids spent their time playing various games in a games shop.
The dinner again was wonderful and the everyone enjoyed chinese food and excellent deserts.
We played a round of Tambola. One of the kids, Krina, managed to win away the first three prizes, while I managed to win the first full house.
The next day, I woke up early morning to catch Sunrise at Wilson point. I was not disappointed at all. The view and the rising sun looked magnificient from that area. The area itself is very huge and you can catch a glimpse of the Sunrise from almost 180 degrees of area and not just a narrow patch. To add to the beauty, immediately after Sunrise a really huge patch of dark clouds surrounded the Sun and the sky looked just fabulous. After taking some more snaps, I moved further and snapped a beutiful bird a liitle further away. I called up Jayesh and he was ready to join me in further ventures. So, I picked him up near the hotel and we moved towards Bombay Point which is famous for its Sunset.
So, we made to to the Sunset point early in the morning !!! And we were again rewarded by some great pics of the Sun rays coming through the dense forest. We also got a great view of the Pratapgadh from there. We moved back and went to the Elephant Head Point. We can't take the car straight to the Elephant head point. We need to park at a place and walk about 15 minutes to reach the point. On the way is the Loardwick point, but we gave it a miss. The Elephant Head point again was really beautiful and it gave us the view of the Konkan side of Mahabaleshwar. we got clear skies and beautiful view of the entire valley from this point. Over here, I saw a really peculiar mountain formation. From the picture below, it looks like that the camera was shaken while taking the picture of some post-processing was done on the picture, but there are actually three identical mountains one behind the other that can be seen from here.
Another interesting thing happened here. While looking at the konkan side, I saw a man climbing up the hill. The same man met us while we were on our way back to the car. The man walks up the mountain for 10 km everyday to come to work at Mahabaleshwar. It was really humbling to see how people still have to walk such long distances early in morning for work. We gave him lift in our car till the market. We reached the hotel in time for the breakfast.
After the breakfast we checked out of the hotel and made way towards Arthur Seat Point. On the way, we paid homage at the Shree Mahavir Swami Jain temple near Hotel Uday. Just before we reached the Marjorie point, the entire area was surrounded in dense fog. We took a small break at Marjorie point and headed towards the Arthur Seat Point. There too, the entire place was foggy. We parked the cars and walked about 10-15 minutes to reach the point. After spending some time in the fog, we returned back. The next destination was for lunch at Mapro Garden.
The Mapro Garden was full of people which were hard to find at other places !! We ordered Pizza and Sandwitches. While, it was being prepared, we checked out the latest offerings from Mapro. They have a very nice system wherein they allow us to taste their products before we buy. We found the Custard Apple really good and their new Falero excellent as well. We bought lot of stuff from them. Had lunch and headed to the OnWheelz Amusement park at Panchgani.
On the way, we took a small break at the Parsi Point. This is a point not to be missed as well, as the view is simply superb.
OnWheelz is a new amusement park which has opened at a beautiful location in Panchgani. It has lots of rides like Rainbow, Dashing car, Mini train etc. We took a unlimited rides pass for the kids, and they enjoyed it to the max. We had to drag them out of the park as it was getting dark and we had to move back to Pune.
© Paras Doshi, 2009.
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