Mahabaleshwar Trip

Trip To Mahabaleshwar

Mahabaleshwar is a scenic town surrounded by the western ghats in Maharashtra, India. It is a well known hill station in the area, famous for pre-monsoon pleasant atmosphere and scenic beauty during monsoon. The other town nearby are home to several holiday homes and boarding schools like Panchgani and Wai.

It is a place blessed by several natural shapes amongst the nature and water bodies between the mountains-rather valleys. It is home to a special breed of deer called the Barking deer,  leopard , bison and several bird species.

This time we went by roads to reach these beautiful yet strong mountains via Pune or Mumbai-Banglore highway.

One can opt for regional state transport or the private bus taking you to most of the beautiful places. Although I believe self drive or car drive is better in this region as you might want to stop at several places of your liking just to enjoy Mother Nature. There are no rail routes to the destination as it is all valley and mountain drive. The nearest station one can opt is Pune as there will be more transport available from this station. Additionally there are several options available to reach Mahabaleshwar.

Transport Details:

State Transport:

 Bus to Wai or Mahabaleshwar directly from Pune or Mumbai bus stop.
Any bus to Satara. Get down at Mahabaleshwar phata and take another bus to Mahabaleshwar.

Private Transport:

Pune – Mahabaleshwar bus – 275 to 500 INR
Pune – Mahabaleshwar Neeta Travels , This has several package options along with their own hotel and sightseeing package. This could be preferable for the family who wants to opt for public transport and be tension free.
       o  redbus.com       
       o   Neetabus.in 
       o   Neetaholidaysonline.com

Car:

 Total distance to Mahabaleshwar is approx 120km approx via NH48
 Time required is 2hr 45min . But do drive safe in the single track ghat starting from Wai
For outsider, try using Zoom car for Car Rental faciltiy or hire online cabs.

Time for the Holiday:

Ideally the best time to visit the place is after first rain of the monsoon season. It is good to go there anytime if you want to enjoy staying in hotel room during the afternoon but enjoy the pleasant sunrise and sunset at different location.

Usually a one night two days trip is enough to explore the place but if you follow the mountain trail as per the places to cover below please plan a four day trip. If you want to enjoy leisure please plan a weekend and if you want to enjoy the nature please plan a weekday so that there are less people around.

The most important suggestion which contradicts my other blogs here is travel during the day time to enjoy the beauty of early morning, evening and the clear sky at night where you can count tremendous amount of stars or do sky gazing.

Hotel or Homestay:

This is just like other commercialized hill station where the rush of the public is almost in every weekend so no much bargains and price could be almost as per the hotel or home stay quality.

The difference here is , bigger the group cheaper is your stay. One can rent a home for a group and enjoy the holiday.

Staying at Panchgani and taking the site seeing bus or taxi could be cheaper than staying in Mahabaleshwar. It totally depends on what kind of holiday you are going for. If you are first timer , than I prefer staying at Mahabaleshwar.

The room price for the family with two kids starts from 1000INR(homestay) to 7000INR(resort).
One can opt for AC or Non-AC rooms. I would rather prefer non-ac cottages to stay with the nature.

Place to cover in Between:

Let us start from the foot after you pass the Satara Ghat from NH48.

Markers:

*are the tranquil places; #are picnic sports; % are devotional places with beauty; !are amusement park with beauty

One with no markers is also worth going if you have much time.

Wai: 

By the Krishna river stream you would be able to enjoy ancient and spectacular:

Ganpati Mandir (%)

Shiv Mandir (%)

Minavli Shiv Mandir(%)

Water Sports(almost at all spots)

Dhom Dam

Panchgani:

Starting for the mountains at 20 km distance from Wai is Panchgani famous for family as well as one night outing. One can enjoy peace in the definition of their liking. It is home to several boarding schools and several celebrity holiday homes. The town is properly developed for tourism as hill station to fight the crouching heat during summer vacation.

Spots:

Mapro Garden(!#)

Parsi Point(#)

Sydney Point

Table land

Ghtlaj Devi Mandir

Amusement Parks

Mahabaleshwar:

The ultimate destination and proper hill station at the highest point of the mountain. One can see the valleys,table tops , roads, river, lake etc from this highest point of the mountain. Divided into Old and New Mahabaleshwar for development reasons one can enjoy the market place or nature living of their choice. Pratapgad and Tapola are adventure treks. There are not many places to stay or eat , so the suggestion would be to stay at Mahabaleshwar and than visit the place or completely opt for the tent stays or perfect resort there.

Spots:

Arthur Seat

Window Point

Echo Point

Kates Point (*)

Elephant Head (*)

Needle Point

Lingmala Waterfall

Veena Lake (*!#)

Hunting Point

Monkey Point

Panchganga Temple (#!%*)

Castle point

Malcolm Point

Sunrise Point (*)

Pratapgad : Garden, AfzalKhan tomb, Shivaji Statue,Bhavani Temple.

Tapola : Triveni Sangam, Sports, Dam, Bamnoli Point and Shouting Point. Please don’t go by the name MiniKashmir , it is nothing like that in summer or even in winter J

My Trip:

Day1: Pune – Mahabaleshwar Road Trip.

As per the suggestion we started at 10am in the morning from Pune so that we can enjoy the right place at right time. We reached Wai at around 11:45am, where we were able to do Ganpati Darshan and than headed toward Minavli and reached there by 12:30pm. We did Picnic packing with us for the food this time but as an option you can eat at Wai Junction and relish the famous “Solkadhi”. Near the temple of Minavli , there is Krishna river where you can enjoy bathing in the river or sit at the ghat to see the tranquil flow of the river stream.

Left for Panchgani at 1:30pm. On the way you will come by all the scenic spots mentioned above. We stopped by Parsi Point to have our lunch and enjoy the valley view.

Left for Mahabaleshwar at 3:00pm. In Mahabaleshwar the points are absolutely scattered and one needs to decide the priority. We decided to go to Kates Point , prior to hotel check-In to enjoy the sunset and do the other spots , early in the next morning. When you go to the Kates Point, there is parking at a junction and than a trek to reach the point and moving ahead you have the elephant head shaped mountain called “Elephant Head”. This are part of New Mahabaleshwar . After enjoying the Sunset at Elephant Head , we turned back to Old Mahabaleshawar and the Hotel called “ARAM” which is government subsidized cottage with amazing free breakfast and great plantation.  The location of the Hotel is centric rather than scenic which gives easy access to several tourist spots and market to visit. We took food and enjoyed the chilling night in the month of Hot April.

Day2: Mahabaleshwar – Tapola Road Trip

We started our day enjoying the breakfast at 8:00am in the morning and heading towards Tapola for the drive. Amazing drive but was a bad option selected for the summer . please visit after the rain J . We enjoyed the boating at the sports but we had to come back soon at our hotel because of the heat. We selected enjoying the Mahabaleshwar market in the day and having our lunch there rather than going to the far spots. In the evening we went to Veena Lake. Please select going there are 4-5pm as there could be traffic on your way. We took horse riding and the pedal boating for hours together enjoying the sunset and tranquility.

Enjoyed shopping in the market in the evening specially some footwears , jam, sharbat  and wooden toys.

Day3: Back Home (Pune)

Again started early to enjoy the nature and mainly avoid the traffic. If you are a strawberry freak , please go early in the market and you will be lucky to get it 40-50 INR a kg. Well that is what we did. We left Mahabaleshwar early at 8:00 am after the breakfast and crossed Veena Lake by 9:30 to avoid further traffic. We took a stop at Mapro Garden in the morning and had a tea by the side of well organized sitting with a valley view. We reached Pune by 12:30 pm and ended our trip.

Trip Cost:

Coverage: Pune - Wai – Panchgani – Mahabaleshwar – Tapola – Mahabaleshwar – Pune.

Fuel Charge: 1500 INR

Hotel Stay( Aaram ): 2200 INR (Including breakfast for two days)

Boating @ Veena Lake: 400 INR

Horse Riding: 200 INR

Shopping: 1200 INR

Food: 1000INR (including luch breakfast for two)

Total Trip Cost: 6500 INR

As I always Say Enjoy Travelling the Most , Make the journey so beautiful that the destination shines @ it's best :).