Before Vairatgad , the first half of the day was spend in trekking Pandavgad and visiting the famous Menawli temple which has become a famous spot for Bollywood movie shooting. Go through it first for better clarity. The base Location is Vyajwadi and Shankarnagar, we did it from the former one. This is one of the first blogs I wrote in 2016 & reflects on my old style of writing. My writing style has improved since then & I just decided to keep this blog untouched alongwith the other two in this Wai series so people can understand how people improve over time & the only thing that is difficult is to get started. More adventures like this one at the end of the post.

How to Reach Vairatgad ?

The previous blog for the first half of the day at pandavgad explains how we reached till wai. From wai there are three routes to reach

Different base villages to reach the fort entrance from Wai-

1] The regular way is through a place called Vyajwadi . But as per local the route is difficult. And that is the reason we went ahead on the same route 🙂

The other routes available are comparatively easy

2]10 minutes away from Vyajwadi is Shankarwadi .You may ask villagers for this route. This route is easy and takes around 1.5 hours to reach the top. The path is an easy trail. It starts to meet Mhasve village trail at the first pass. After that we cross three plateaus to see the rock walls of the fort. From there we traverse besides the wall. Enroute we find the rock cut cisterns. And going forward we meet the path from Vyajwadi at the main entrance.

3] The other route is from Mhasve Village , which meets the third route from Shankarwadi at the Khind

History of Vairatgad

The Vairatgad fort was built in the 11th century AD by Maharah Bhoj of the Shilahar Dynasty. The name of the fort is supposedly derived from a wild tribe named Vairats, who lived in this area. Shivaji Maharaj conquered the Wai region and included Vairatgad and Pandavgad in his kingdom.During Shivaji’s period the fort was used only as a military station.Soon after the decline of the Maratha kingdom, the British took control of the fort in 1818.

Things to see On the Vairatgad

The best time would be from September to May. The ramparts are still strong at places and are supported by curved bastions. The entrance consists of 25-30 steps.

Things to look forward to:

1. Steps at the main door
2.  The hanuman Temple at the entrance ( There is a hanuman idol in front of it as well)
3. Temple of Shiva ( Huge sheltered area in front can be used for night stay easily accomodating 15 people)
4. Lakes
5. Many idols & carvings lying at different places
6. Ofcourse the view

How Difficult is this  Vairatgad trek ?

we did the trek on 1st october amidst heavy rains and clouds from Vyajwadi.I would say the grade was Not easy, with slippery conditions. I would however say that in absence of the slippery road it would be an easy outing for anyone having decent stamina.

Things to see Around Vairatgad

Near By Places to visit near Wai:

Forts:

• Pandavgad
• Kamalgad

Temples:

• Dhundi Vinayak Mandir
• Dholya Ganpati Mandir
• Kashi Vishweshwar mandir
• Chakreshwar Mandir
• Agnimukh hanuman
• Bhairav Mandir, Bavdhan
• Birth place of rani lamibai mother’s palace ( couldnt find this )

Historic places:

• Paga Talim
• Nana Phadanvis Wada ( Menavli)
• 111 year old Goshala

Near By Places to visit near Panchgani: (PanchGani is 14km from wai)

Forts:

• Khindergad ( Rajapuri caves)

Panchgani points:

• Sydney points
• Parsi Point
• Mapro Garden
• Bhor Rajwada
• Sahipar Bhor
• Bhatghar Dam
• Neckless point ( Katyar Kaljat ghusli)

There are many picturesque points in PanchGani. Covered the above points, you can also do the following:

• Table Land
• Kate’s Point (Elephant Rock)
• Mahabaleshar Temple
• Connaught Peak
• wilson Point
• Lodwick point
• Venna lake
• Arthur’s Seat
• Dhom Dam

My Story @Vairatgad

Having completed the Pandavagad trek and sight seeing around the Menavli Temple, Nana Phadanvis Palace & worshipping the famous Dholya Ganpati, wai we were off to the the next trek of Vairatgad.The village of the vyajwadi had lots of greenery with the farms set up for custard apple. Prasad had earlier slipped and twisted his ankle. So the Kulkarni couple decided to skip the fort and instead enjoy the unlimited and scrumptious custard apples. All the photos were taken by Santosh & Kiran.

The trek starts:

So Guru, Ananta, Santosh, Vinod, Kiran and myself took it upto ourselves to complete the trek. As it had rained for few days , most of us were without our rain gear. But today the climate decided to change drastically and the rain god had special cloudy treats for us.

I was the only one carrying an umbrella. So i carried all the electronic goods in the back pack, others decided to get wet in the rain.

After a while came a vertical rocky patch and coupled with the rains made for a one adrenaline struck slippery wall.

The rocky patch also has some rock cut steps , but are eroded

The rain and the clouds painted a wonderful picture of the fort.

The route is a bit difficult to decipher in the rains.  The route is in a basic shape of four till the main entrance of the fort as described at the start in ‘How to reach’.

After around an hour of trek , the first glimpse of the fort became visible

A  little further ahead and we reach the main entrance of the fort. The other route from Shantinagar meets the Vyajwadi road near the main entrance.

Just inside the fort is Hanuman temple.

Moving further to the left are couple of lakes. There is a single tree between these lakes which shelters a nandi. No pictures available since it was raining heavily. Going ahead is a big Shiva temple with a roofed entrance which can easily accommodate 15 people.

we were all drenched and shivering .The clouds and cold winds at the top didnt help either.

From the top one can get a view of Pandavgad , Dhom Dam, Wai town and Pachgani tableland.From the top one can get a view of square’ish shaped Pandavgad across the plains, Dhom Dam, Wai town and Pachgani tableland. we couldn’t see anything because the hills were surrounded by clouds. we decided to descend planning to reach hopefully before dark

Back at the base village we were so tired, we decided not to change the clothes till we reached the hotel.

wadanche Mhasave ( Huge Banyan tree)

There is a huge Banyan tree spaning almost an acre in the  Mhasve village. Before the village you will notice a rusty fenced compound with overgrown grass and huge Banyan trees spread across a large area. The main Banyan tree had decayed and fallen down but over year the offshoots have grown into new trees.

Since it was getting late for us , we unwillingly decided to skip the banyan tree and decided to head towards the hotel Amantran , where we had lunch in the afternoon. Enroute the hotel we went to a temple which also had caves above it .It was raining cats and  dogs , we managed to go there and come back as fast as possible.

Reached the hotel, quick haggle for the room, quick dinner and slept at early 2100 hrs. Slept like a dead log. woke up at 0500 hrs , feeling all fresh.

Everyone got ready quickly with anticipation of completing Kamalgad.

Dundi Vinayak Temple:

We headed to the nearby Dundi mandir,Brahman Shahi Ghat for an auspicious start for the day

This temple is probably the oldest temple in Wai.

The natural idol (SwayamBhu) is inside the temple. Moving towards the river we could see the temples which are merged in water during monsoon.

The idols were half submerged in the river and made for a terrific sight

Offerings were made and blessings were sought. Last few pics before we headed to Kamalgad.

we heard from the people that it had rained incessantly over the night and we should not be heading to Kamalgad now as the route have been very muddy and slippery.Since most of us were already tired from yesterday’s escapades and  tired of rain we opted to visit the less demanding Rajapuri caves, panchgani. Enroute Rajapuri caves is the Govardhan Sanstha.

Govardhan Sanstha

This was only appropriate since it is 2nd October 2016 today. And Mahatma Gandhiji was a huge supporter of the Govardhan movement.

The institute lies on the wai-panchgani-Mahabaleshwar highway on the left side. The Govardhan institute which was built in 1905 was one of the first such kinds of institute built in India. It was founded by Mr. Chound ( The Fouder’s grandson himself gave us a tour).The main stable was built in 1934, even Mahatma Gandhiji visited it during its construction days.The institute has helped spread the message of importance of cows from the pre-independence era. They have been experimenting on hybrid cows to increase the milk productivity.

They currently have different types of cow such as Gir Gujrat, khillar, Konkani, jersey etc to name a few.The average milk production from there stable has reached an average of 18 litres with maximum of 22 litre/ perday. with study they have proved that even after the cows stop producing milk, they can be financially viable on the basis of cowdung and urine. They also have a
bio-gas plant and cattle feed storage in the facility.
Farmers from many places come here to receive guidance from their expertise.

After a few pics we headed of to PanchGani- Rajapuri caves.

After going around the institute , we got back to our vehicle and started of towards Rajapuri caves Panchgani. (Click here to read about Rajapuri Caves)

We had planned for Kamalagad but many of my freinds were tired and hence decided to go for  historically rich Rajapuri caves instead.  i was a bit bitter about this decision at first but then this proved to be worthy enough. 

Here’s a Gomukh at Rajapuri caves. Something like this created centuries ago makes you think about human ingenuity.

Next stop was  Rajapuri Caves followed by Mapro Panchgani, Bhor Palace & Necklace point: Click here to read about Rajapuri Caves blog

Hope you enjoyed  reading this post.