Brightlands Resort

Trek to Peb / Bikatgad - Matheran -- Mini Railway

by Ishh

"About Peb Fort - Matheran"

Fort Peb is situated on northeast side of Panvel, on Mumbai-Pune road, at a distance of 3-4 km on west side of Neral. To avoid crowd at hill stations like Matheran, nature lovers must visit the nearby fort Peb. This is the most beautiful one-day trek. But there is a dense forest on the way to the fort Peb. The fort is also named as ‘VikatGad’. Historical references clearly indicate that Shivaji Maharaj used the caves on the fort as silos for grain storage. Fascination spots are cave on the fort is occupied by disciples of Swami Samarth, a great saint. The beautiful waterfall on the way is the main attraction here. Surrounding scenery looks marvelous from the cave in the monsoon.

"Our Trek Journey...."

Fort Peb also known as VikatGad near Matheran. We hired a Tempo Traveler to reach the base village of Fanaswadi which is about 4Kms from Neral. We had hardly crossed the Pune and it started raining. It was all expected as it is monsoon season. Thereafter rain accompanied us thru the whole journey. At about 0730Hrs we had our tea at a dhaba ahead of khopoli. After tea we started our journey ahead. We reached the base village of Fanaswadi at 0900Hrs. After reaching there we all boarded at the local community hall. Here some of the team members prepared some delicious sandwiches. Local boy agreed to guide us through the way to Peb.
It was still raining but everybody knew that it was part of the game. So at 1000Hrs we started walking towards our destination. The very first hurdle was to cross a water stream about 20feets long and 3feets deep with a turbulent flow. Group crossed the stream forming a chain in Saathi Haath Badhana style. After crossing the river it was a walk along the hill road. After a walk of about 1Hr we noticed a very good waterfall. Everybody jumped into the water to enjoy the waterfall. Some of the members then climbed up the rock where the big waterfall was. On our way, we could sight absolutely beautiful peaks and valleys around, which were lush green. Members could hardly resist themselves from taking some snaps.
After refreshing themselves by playing in waterfall for about 45minutes team started its forward journey. Now it was real test of endurance ahead. The climb was quite steep. In the way there were two difficult rock patches to climb. But the team never gave up. There was not even the slightest of doubt that we can’t climb up such a big rock. Finally we all did it. We reached the top at 1315Hrs. It was hard to hide the smiles.
We all had a nice hot tea at the caves served to us by the disciples of swami samarth. After having tea we decided our further course of action. We had a change of plan after advice from the people on the top of fort. We decided to walk to Matheran’s point 132 and send our guide back from midway to get the bus at Matheran’s point 132.

The first step was to climb up the fort wall. Though there was a ladder to climb up but still that required lot of courage to execute the climb successfully. After climbing up the fort wall we went to shiv mandir on fort where all prayed for success of the expedition. Now it was time to climb down the fort wall from other side. This was the most difficult part of the whole trek we had to climb down a ladder about 60feets deep into the valley. There was no support else where and the way till ladder was also quite narrow. But the whole team passed the courage test put up by the nature. Everyone took very cautious steps to ladder and then climbed down the ladder very carefully. All in the team motivated each other. Everybody was sure that he/she is not alone and will successfully cross this hurdle. Finally it took about 30minutes for all of us to come down the ladder. Everybody thanked god and each other for successfully clearing this hurdle.
The life was not still easy for the team as nature had all the tests for them. It was raining heavily and we had to walk along the narrow road with a valley of about 2000feets on the other side. We reached the railway track on which the Neral-Matheran toy train runs. This was the point from where the group was supposed to head toward Matheran and the guide was supposed to go back to base village to get the bus to Matheran. But as it was too late we decided to abandon the Matheran plan and walk back to base village.

Journal: Donna & Sandy in Matheran

by Donna_in_India

"Mumbai to Matheran"

Our trip a few weeks ago to Matheran was wonderful. It was just the break we needed then. Matheran is about a 3 hour drive from Mumbai - at an altitude of 2,600+ ft and there are no cars/rickshaws allowed in the town. You park your car and then walk or take a horse or man-pulled rickshaw to the town which is about 45-60 minutes from that point. We arrived at night and rode horses up. We had our own cottage at the hotel which was nice. We enjoyed tea out on the porch in the morning watching the monkeys. Our first day we took horses out to the various look out points. The view was beautiful and the air was clean. At one point the sky turned black and the rains came hard. Within several minutes it had stopped and we were back on the horses. At the end of the day we had made arrangements to meet the guy with the horses at 5 a.m. the next morning to watch the sunrise from one particular point that was about 90 minutes away by horse.

"Sweet Chikki...."

We showered and had a late lunch. Then we took a long walk through the woods. It was so peaceful. Green trees (!) all around and monkeys swinging from the trees. An occasional cow or two would pass by. In the early evening, we went into town to do a little shopping. Specialties in Matheran include hand made leather sandals and various sweets such as fudge (not too good), honey, and chikki. Chikki is a specialty treat that is similar to the consistency of peanut brittle but is much stickier and sweeter. There are several varities made from different kinds of nuts. It's good but you can't eat a lot of it at once. We picked up a bunch for friends and family and headed back to the hotel for dinner.

"Monkeys on our porch..."

The next morning we struggled to be up, showered, and out the door for our 5 a.m. meeting with our guide and horses. We waited and waited and waited. He never showed up. This is a common occurrence here - even in business! We went back to our cabin to sleep for a while and then had tea on the porch. Some of the monkeys were very brazen and came right onto the porch and tried to take our tea. Sandeep fed the monkeys potato chips and one in particular got a little nasty when he ran out of chips!

"Hiking, hiking, hiking...."

After breakfast we started out on what turned out to be a 4 hour hike going to different look out points than we had been to the previous day. Early in our hike we picked up 3 dogs along the way. Soon after we picked up another dog. We hiked along through the beautiful woods coming to rest at each look out point. It was amazing that we were so relaxed. We had not even talked about - or even thought about - work since we left Mumbai!! We stopped - dogs in tow - to sit for a long while at Sunset Point. It was amazing. All the way at the edge of the rocks we sat. The view (and the drop!) was long. The mountains in the area reminded me a lot of Arizona and there was even some of the "red" mud that reminded me of NC. There were small villages below and the dried up rivers that would soon be full again once monsoons came. We talked and talked about all kinds of things. Sandeep told me more about history, culture, and religion which I always find fascinating. Too soon it was time to head back. We had just realized how far we had walked. We made a huge circle ending up back in town where we said goodbye to the dogs. We went back to the hotel, picked up our bags and got back on horses for the trip back down to the car. About 3/4 of the way down the skies opened and it poured and poured. We were drenched but it felt so good! It had just about stopped raining as we got to the car. We grabbed some clothes out of our suitcase and changed into some dry clothes before heading back home.