When Nature Calls

The God who painted nature in its varied hues and moods is the greatest. He must’ve worked painfully hard to produce such flawless beauty which entices the human mind, even though he may not be physically present there. He then blesses us with rains & cleanses his creation to its original form and welcomes us to enjoy it. To my mind, this is definitely the season to be one amongst nature.

Every monsoon a group of nature lovers, make it a point to go into forests and see the environment for themselves. That they happen to be members of SurfUnion is a pleasant coincidence. In 2004, we explored the jungles of Yeeor near Thane with some difficulty. This time it was the turn of the beautiful forest of Karnala Bird Sanctuary and the Karnala Fort situated in the middle of the forest. The participants for this trek were RanTen, Myself, Aadesh (Kreativ), Elroy (Enygma), Hemant & Varun (Riddlerr). Amit Thakker was involved in helping us with the vehicle and food arrangements. He also provided an able nature walker Kaivalya Varma, who’s an accomplished climber, ,snake lover and an environmentalist himself. To prepare the group both mentally an physically, informative mails were sent to the participants by RanTen which outlined the rations that they needed to bring along with them. The trekkers also had to brace themselves for the heavy monsoons so dry clothes had to be carried along. All I can say here is that life is a pleasant adventure itself but it becomes even more jovial when you are in the company of the people who admire you.

We began our journey from Andheri at 6:30 with Kaivalya, Hemant, Aadesh and myself settling in the Qualis provided by Amit. He was supposed to come with us but the plans changed and Kaivalya chipped in with his expertise. Later we picked up Elroy from the Holy Family Church near Chakala at around 6:40 am. Since there was no traffic on the road we zoomed towards Ghatkopar Shopper’s Stop, the designated pick up point for Varun who was a bit late. Infact we reached the place 15 mins in advance! Next was RanTen’s turn to be picked up from Chembur opposite Kamath’s Bar (not a coincidence at all). We began our journey towards Karnala well before time and were soon passing by the picturesque Palm Beach Road in Navi Mumbai.

About Karnala
Just to give you a brief of the Karnala Valley and the fort. Between Pen and Panvel lies the fort of Karnala. At the bottom of the fort is the bird sanctuary. Karnala is 120 k.m. away from Pune and 13 k.m. away from Panvel on the Mumbai-Goa Highway. The sanctuary is around 25 meters high from the sea level , while the fort itself is 370 meters from the sea level. Maharashtra Government in 1968-69 declared this 4.5 Sq.Km. region as a bird sanctuary. Rich with natural habitats for various kinds of birds, in the sanctuary one can find around 150 species of birds. Specially, you can watch for Red Vented Bulbul, Horn Bill, Myna, Owl, Ashy Rain War Blur, Paradise Fly Catcher, RobinMcPie. We could see non!

The Karnala Fort dates back to the 12th Century when it was built. It was under the Nizamshahi rule until the 15th century after which Emperor Shivaji captured it by building obstructions all around the fort. The Moghuls, the Angres and the Peshwas were some of its later conquerors which was important fort in the region. The fort was finally captured by Colonel Prother of the British in 1818. You are just dazed & proud to walk on the same footprints of these great warriors of history.

The Arrival at Karnala
Our first ‘pit stop’ was at the Kshanbhar Vishranti Resort, situated at the foothills of the Karnala Sanctuary. This was to be the spot where we’d have our breakfast and lunch and snacks. After refreshing ourselves we had a nice breakfast consisting of Batata Vadas, Chai-Koffee and Kokum Sarbat (I was the only who had it). We moved towards the starting point of the sanctuary which is a 5 min drive from the resort. At the base is a parking lot where everyone was given instructions on what to carry and how to go trekking into the forest. The place is usually swarming with tourists, trekkers and couples wanting some privacy. That illiteracy still holds ‘fort’ in the sanctuary was proven by the gross vandalism which as at display everywhere with signs of hearts and arrows being scrapped through the walls of the fort. Even the trees inside the forest were not spared.

We all took our backpacks and each trekker was given boxes of packed juice & chocolates in case one feels thirsty. We were all advised to carry sufficient water. The clothing was also improved, especially after my bad experience at Yeeor. I was back to normal with full cotton pants and a cotton half sleeve shirt with my favourite jacket niecly tied around my waist. My NIKON COOLPIX 5200 came handy today. The piece is so small and yet so handy that I could easily hold in in one hand and shoot pictures. As I could see, the rest of the team had some difficulty in the same context. Elroy carried his Olympus C770, RanTen was with his NIKON COOLPIX 4200 while Varun came loaded with equipments – NIKON F80 and a tripod, which I think was not required for the trek. It added to his backpack weight and exhausted him too quickly.

The trek began and we all started walking towards the forest area and towards the Karnala Fort. As suspected we were attacked by mosquitoes once inside the jungle. These mosquitoes come in armies and spare non. Whichever part is exposed is bitten off by these blood sucking rascals. Thankfully my Yeeor experience behind me I was spared, but my neck and hands bore the brutal brunt of their attack. The natural way of keeping the mosquitoes away is to pull a branch of a plant with some leaves and keep moving it across (swishing is the word I like). Mosquitoes hate wind blows and they will eventually give up. The earth inside the forest had become slippery due to the growth of moss & the humidity was extremely high. Elroy had the rare disctinction of slipping on three occasions. His brand new Woodland shoesdidn’t like their first day in the forest. Hopefully, inspite of such experiences, he escaped with only a few cuts and thankfully no damage was done to his Olympus. At one point, near a stream, RanTen could no longer carry on because of the stress, the unfriendly terrain and humidity and he decided to stay back there. We continued our journey to our destination.

On our way we found some species of mushrooms and Kaivalya was thorough with his explanation on the jungle all the time. His stories about leopards and the Royal Bengal Tigers kept us involved all the time. Being an avid snake lover himself, he also had lots to say about the reptile species. He has been on numerous mountaineering expeditions and he now wants to visit Arunachal Pradesh and discover some of the valleys there, which are totally unheard of. His enthusiasm and his immense knowledge about nature was instrumental in the huge success of this trek. He helped us on every nook and corner of our journey.

The terrain was laced with dangers. One could easily slip and go down rolling like a stone. Every step had to be carefully thought and taken. There would be nothing to hold onto sometimes while at other places we were lucky to have the vines grow all over the place. The forest is said to have leopards but we didn’t want to see them at all. The experience was frightening. There are a lot of crabs and a whole species of it. But they are very shy creatures and run for cover when they hear a sound. We caught a glimpse of some of them. Finally the steep climb gave way to a more flatter and hospitable terrain where we met 2 more trek enthusiasts. Then as if to welcome their guests, the rain gods gave us a shower and then covered us with clouds. I could only stand on the hilltop with my arms fully stretched, just to embrace whatever mother nature gave me. The whole experience could only be descibed in one word as ‘heavenly’.

A little later we came across another hill which had a steep climb. It was a test of our physical endurance and tenacity through out this whole adventure. Kaivalya was helpful in this matter and he used to guide us on where we needed to put our feet down literally to make our climb a lot easier. The rains had made our climb much more difficult. Now the pinnacle, as they call the thumb shaped rock on the Karnala Fort, became visible. It would sometimes get lost in the clouds and emerge again. The pinnacle cannot be climbed unless you’re an accomplished climber and you have special mountaineering equipment. There are beehives on the pinnacle which can be dangerous too. But Kaivalya showed me the way which climbers take to go up the pinnacle and come down. He has been one such lucky guy to climb it.

The fort consists of some man made caves and a fresh water pond which is not ‘fresh’ right now. It was clear from the growing grass that nature had taken over the fort. There were also some sad things which I noticed. The walls of the granary inside the fort are completely vandalised by unscrupulous lovers who would rather proclaim their love to the world then to themselves. There was an epitaph of a climber who lost his life scaling the pinnacle, which was vandalised by writing some rubbish in oil paint. One could also find broken beer bottles and food wrappers strewn all across the fort and its surrounding periphery. This abject abuse of historical structures and the environment must be stopped at all costs and it should begin with us. Be responsible for every place that you visit and love. Respect it fully by keeping it clean.

To my surprise, I found my mobile receiving full network (even though I am not on roaming) and I managed to call RanTen and ask him to stay where he was. There are 2 routes which lead you to the Karnala Fort and the one which we took is the most treacherous and thrilling. The other route would like like we’re having a stroll in some park.The journey back to the ‘base camp’ was faster but difficult. The land had become very slippery and the mud was not helping the cause. Our shoes were filled with the slush and everything that we held onto for support had become wet. We found RanTen happily smoking his ciggy. I must praise his courage to stay in the forest area in the same place for 2 long hours. I doubt if the mosquitoes troubled him at all.

Back at the Kshanbhar Vishranti Resort, we cleaned ourselves and settled down in the AC room for lunch while RanTen and Varun took some Vodka shots. We consumed loads of Aloo Mutter, Jeera Rice, Dal Tadka and washed everything down with some Fresh Lime Soda and Buttermilk. The next plan was to visit a nursery of plants but upon reaching the plae we found it had shut down and so we went back to the Karnala ‘base camp’ and into the parking lot where we sat chatting in the car. On the way back, RanTen and myself on the front seat of the Qualis were the only people chatting away merrily. Finally we said good bye to Kaivalya at Ghatkopar but not before promising to meet again some day for another trek at some other exciting location.