Varandha Ghat,Shivtharghal memorable experience

Significance of this place: In year 1650 to 1662 a great saint Samarth Ramdas swami ,guru of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj wrote his famous book Dasbodh.

He dictated it and his disciple kalyanswami wrote it at this place in a small cave called Shivtharghal.It also has a meditation place called SunderMath

It took 12 years to complete this book

This place is surrounded by mountains from all sides with dense forests and wild life here contains Tigers, Leoperds, fox, monkeys.

How to Go there(From Pune) Distance from Pune via Bhor 110 kms

We  four of us travelled to this place on bikes and was a interesting journey.Started from Pune around 7:00 am we reached nearby Bhor in almost one hour after a small break of 15 minutes we proceeded further.

After reaching Bhor we took leftmost road from ST stand on the road going towards Mahad.Further the road goes from hilly areas adjoining Neera Devghar dam.Varandha Ghat atarts next from Hirdoshi village 25 kms from Bhor.After we pass Neera Dam the road starts going uphill and we just enjoyed the scenery in ghat and backwaters of the dam was really interesting.

it is almost 30 kms long interesting ghat with ups and downs and sharp curves and adjoining backwaters of the dam and dense forests,flora and fauna along with mild sunlight and grenery all around.You can enjoy the heavenly scenic beauty all around.

Almost after 20 kms drive in ghat we came to an interesting point in Varandha Ghat called as DwarMandap or entrance to Konkan.It is highest point in this Ghat and from here you can have view of Torna,Rajgad,Raigad to your right if climate is clear, Kawlya fort and Waghjai point to your front and the Mahabaleshwar and Raireshwar mountain ranges towards left.You can clearly feel the difference between Konkan and deccan pleateau from this point.Towards Konkan the valley is approx 3000+ feet deep whereas on the deccan pleateau the valley is almost 1000 feet.

From here we climbed down the ghat towards Mahad and 6 kms from here is Waghjai point

You can also have view of shivtharghal surrounded by deep valleys and in dense forests from Waghjai point in Varandha ghat Waghjai is also famous for water tanks on hilltop which contains water for almost a year.

After climbing down the ghat from Waghjai there is a small approach road towards right(not for driving in rainy season) going right side towards Shivtharghal (5 kms) suitable only for two wheelers and Cars.

This road is a quiet one and through dense forest.

Another road is from Barasgao 17 kms before Mahad after climbing down the ghat and from there Shivtharghal is 10 kms and it is a good tar road.  

Shivthar is a small village located in Sahyadri footsteps and adjoining Kawlya fort and Madhe ghat region.It is a calm and quiet place good for peace and meditation.It also has lots of waterfalls in rainy season SunderMath was built by Ramdas swami in Shivthar and later it was properly built in year 1860 and behind that just 100 metres is the famous cave where Dasbodh was written

You can also stay overnight here in Bhakta Niwas.

There is a road going uphill from SundarMath which takes  to remains of palace of Chandrao More who once ruled Jawali region in dense forests spanning from Pratapgad to Raigad(later he was defeated by Shivaji Maharaj).

After enjoying nature fully we reached Shivtharghal by around 11:00 AM.we had good view of surroundings,climbed up the hills,took dip in the river, and had view of scenic waterfalls and some rest makes us to forget our worries,tensions there.We finally noticed that it was 3:00 pm and decided to take a move.

We were unfortunate not to trek Kawalya fort after coming back to Waghjai but we decided to come back some day here to trek this fort and the surrounding region and proceeded towards Pune at 4:00 pm.

I have some photos of those but the image size of all is above 1 mb hence I could not load due to restrictions of 400 kb

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Comments (1)

1. Written by like2fly, on 24-12-2008 22:47 good one...  we also had same trek in july\'07...by bikes!!! Report