Mahabaleshwar Trip - II: Mahabaleshwar
Mahabaleshwar is located in Satara district in the Sahyadri
range of the Western Ghats, about 120km from Pune, It has an average elevation
of 1,353 metres (4,439 ft), with the highest peak of about 1,439 m (4,721 ft).
Where to Go:
Mahabaleshwar is cooler and misty when compared to
Panchgani. It has more number of viewpoints too, the complete list is here;
Elephant Head point/Needle Hole Point, Kate's Point, Echo
Point, Mahabaleshwar Mandir, Panchganga Temple, Elphinstone Point, Marjori
Point, Savitri Point, Castle Rock Point, the Arthur Seat, Tigers Spring point,
Malcolm point, Lingmala Waterfall, Venna Lake, Wilson Point, Dhobi Waterfall,
Lodwick Point, Bombay Point, Pratapgad fort, Hunter's Point, and Cannought Peak.
How to Go:
After Mapro there are two routes with different collection
of viewpoints to choose from.
The first one is the Duchess road, towards old
Mahabaleshwar. There are about six significant attractions through the Old
Mahabaleshwar route, namely Elephant Head point, Mahabaleshwar Mandir, Elphinstone
Point, Savitri Point, Castle Rock Point, and the Arthur Seat in the order of
their distance from Mapro Garden.
The second one is the Panchgani-Mahabaleshwar Main Road,
towards Mahabaleshwar town. The main attractions following this route are Lingmala
Waterfall, Venna Lake, Wilson Point, Dhobi Waterfall, Lodwick Point, Bombay
Point and at the last Pratapgad fort, in the order of their distance from Mapro
Garden.
While the remaining attractions including Hunter's Point,
and Cannought Peak lie in between the connecting road from Duchess Road and
Panchgani-Mahabaleshwar Main Road.
Another thing to note here is at both Panchgani and
Mahabaleshwar, the locals collect money as municipality for entry, which is
about 150 Rs per car with four tourists in Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar
separately. But at the end of the tour felt good, by seeing the infrastructure
and cleanliness maintained in all the viewpoints.
Savitri Point:
It was about 17km drive from mapro Garden to Savitri point,
on the way to Arthur Seat. As you pass through Old Mahabaleshwar, the
visibility of the road descends with heavy mist all through the day.
As you park your vehicle you have to descend few steps with
well paved walkways to reach the view point, throughout the walkway it was
completely covered with mist with visibility of about 10m only.
We waited for a while for the mist to flow away, but only
glimpses were felt when the wind blows away the mist. Keeping the curiosity to
ourselves we proceeded towards the Arthur seat.
Arthur Seat:
Less than a km from Savitri point is the Arthur seat point. This
is the last point towards the Old Mahabaleshwar route, the road ends here.
There are a number of viewpoints over here, most of them overlooking the same
valley with different angles. Having hot coffee and hot pakodas here is really
enjoyable with mist covered all around.
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| Mist covered route to Aurther seat |
The name Arthur seat is because, Arthur used to sit here and
stare at river Savitri in which his wife and child were drowned.
The viewpoint is built over the very edge of the hill with a
steep fall in height, protruding outwards with a cantilever platform. The whole
walkway with the steps are well paved and kept very clean most of its way. This
point has one more reason to be more popular with its floating of light objects
in air. Since the sudden descend of the hill, creating a form of wall for the
wind, so the air suddenly blows upwards making any light objects in its way to
be lifted upwards and sometimes blown away in the air over 20 m high. The
visibility over here was almost zero, even though we waited for a long, the
mist was too heavy to be carried away by the wind.
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| Arthur seat point completely covered with mist with no visibility of the valley |
While returning back from the Arthurs seat, are many other
points, all in series, Next was the Tiger Spring point, here the visibility was
better after waiting for a while got a better glimpse of the valley. It was
amazingly beautiful. These hills were slight unique in there structure when
compared to other ones. It appears as the hills are being chiseled at regular
intervals, definitely not from humans, I would call them mystery hills.
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| Chiseled like layers of the valley from tiger spring point |
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| Amazing view of the valley from tiger spring point |
Although no room for trees, but it was mostly
green with rocks in-between. Through this point one can have a clear view of
the Arthur seat and the rocky wall.
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| Arthurs seat viewpoint as seen from Tiger Spring point |
Climbing further will reach you to Malcolm point, from here
the Savitri Valley and Arthur seat were visible. It is said that Pratapgard
Fort is visible from this point, but at least not to my naked eye, probably
with a binocular it is viewable. The visibility was clear with very less mist
covered.
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| A slightly different view of the valley as seen from Malcolm point |
Further through the walkway was Echo point (not to be
confused with the Echo point at Elephant Head), but I didn’t notice the echo
anyhow. The last was the Hunting point (not to be confused with the Hunters
point near Connaught peak), we were tired of climbing the steps so had to relax
at the chairs placed at these points having some snacks and juice. There are a
lot of monkeys over these points, so watch out while you carry eatables in your
hands. We climbed back and reached the parking area directly.
Elphinstone Point:
About 3km from Arthur seat back towards Old Mahabaleshwar is
the Elphinstone point. On the way, we skipped Castle Rock Point and Marjori
Point, as most of these have somewhat similar views.
There is a small descend of steps through the parking area
towards the viewpoint. This has a wider view compared to all earlier points.
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| Pavement to the Elphinstone Point |
There are seating’s built here to sit and relax the beautiful panoramic view.
The mountains were all covered with heavy mist, and the visibility was very
less. Still felt better compared to my previous visit here, which was blocked
by heavy rains. The monkeys here were more arrogant and in higher number,
relaxed for a while in the mist covered seats.
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| View as seen from Elphinstone Point |
Kate’s Point/Elephant Head and Echo Point:
After Elphinstone, we directly headed towards the Kates
point passing by the old Mahabaleshwar, which is about 11km drive. Here the
mist was almost disappeared. The route past the Old Mahabaleshwar till Arthur
seat has heavy mist, and the route before Old mahabaleshwar has very less mist.
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| Echo point - scream into the valley to get back ur own voice |
At Kates point is another significant point called as Echo
point, this is a real echo point, tried and tested by me. It actually returns
back one’s own voice when shouted loudly into the valley.
The view from these two points are amazing with a wide
panoramic view covering the Krishna River Valley, Dhom Dam, Balakwadi Dam,
Kamalgarh fort and the Needles Hole point towards extreme right.
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| Balakwadi Dam as seen from Kates point |
The name elephant head is because the view point as seen
from Needle Hole point looks like the head of an Elephant.
Needle Hole point:
A slight walk from Kate’s point takes you to the Needle Hole
point, from here the Elephant head can be seen and the needle hole in-between
the elephant head and its trunk. It was worth the walk as the view of the
elephant head was distinct.
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| Elephant Head as seen from the Needle Hole point |
Panchganga Temple:
We returned back to old Mahabaleshwar for the Panchganga
temple and Mahabaleshwar mandir. These two temples are very old and has lot of
significance. Both are just a few meters away from each other.
While Mahabaleshwar temple is dedicated to lord Shiva, Panchganga
temple is dedicated to the five rivers flowing from mahabaleshwar, namely the
Krishna, Koyna, Venna, Savitri and Gayatri. The confluence of these five rivers
has given the name Panchganga where Panch means five and Ganga means river.
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| Mahabaleshwar mandir |
Venna Lake:
Our last destination of the tour was Venna lake, it was
getting darker by the time we reached here at about 6pm. As we were not much
interested in peddle boating, we just enjoyed the view from the seating placed
around the lake. Relaxed here with the mist blowing our way. Much of the lake
was covered with mist, with very less visibility. There is horse riding
available here also, but not advised compared to Table land.
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| Boating at Venna Lake |
Having spent some relaxing moments at the lake we started
our journey back to Pune, on the way didn’t forget to shop at Mapro. Although
can be visited in a single day, but to have a more relaxing journey one can
halt overnight in many of the resorts available in Mahabaleshwar.
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