wai..

been a bit lazy..delayed posting  ;). 

It was August and time for Krishna puskaralu..

I was searching for a place where we can go for this Krishna pushkaralu(This is my fisrt time). As I was not interested to go till Mahabaleshwar my search ended

Parks of Pune - I

                                                           

                                                                        Sambhaji park

searching for kid friendly places, I zeroed down to Sambhaji park. The park is located on JM road. The entry to the park is free. It has ample greenery and various varieties of outdoor play equipment for kids. It also has a small aquarium.

We visited the park on Sunday and OMG!!!

Ramdhara: Far from the maddening crowd

We have been planning to visit Ramdhara from long time, finally made it this Sunday.
Ramdhara is picturesque location near Loni Kalbhor, which is maintained by forestry department. It is mainly a temple with lake surrounding it and hills standing behind it. It is a good picnic spot. The canopy of tress is refreshing.
You can even have a glimpse of life that is seen in villages. The traffic dwindles once you enter Loni village. The lands after Loni village are deserted except for few shepherd camps.
No hoarding is provided for directions..I couldn't find any, purely relayed on GPS.
Whatever effort the travel takes is nothing when

An evening @Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park

We recently visited Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park.
But there weren't any good collection. it was more of a park with huge canopy of trees. They have routine collection of snakes, tortoise and crocodiles. We didn't have the opportunity to see bear, i think it might be sleeping :). Monkeys were there, but they were ordinary. The deer's collection was good. They are in good number and i think they have got habituated to the onlookers. We had a good view on deer's. Then there was wolf according to the display, but i don't think it's a wolf, it must be fox. Reading picture books along with Praneeth has taught something..
Only tiger and elephant were balance. We thought of visiting the elephant first so that kids will enjoy seeing the jumbo..but

Traveling with kids??....here is the checklist

Traveling with kids requires stringent planning. We need to have all things in one place. If we miss one required item, the entire day/trip may be spoiled. 
Here is a basic checklist that is required. 

Theur, Narayanpur and Baneshwar

I am writing after a long time. We had a new addition in our family, so travelling became a rarity. So is photography, get ready to read with no clues from the pics.

After doing a lot of research we opted to visit Narayanpur, i was a bit reluctant but the trip turned out to be a memorable one. The visit had few unexpected surprises :). When we were checking for the blogs on Narayanpur we found that there is also a place near-by which we hadn't known earlier. The plan was to visit Theur-Ramdhara-Shiv temple in Saswad-Narayanpur-Baneshwar.  Due to time constraint we had to skip Ramdhara and Lord Shiva temple in Saswad.

We started our journey from Keshavnagar(Mundhwa).

Theur

Theur has one of the Astavinayak Ganapatis of Pune. It is pretty close to our place but we didn't know about it till we were planning this trip. The Ganapati here is referred as chintamani Ganapti. It is said that Lord Ganapati retrieved the chintamani jewel

Gharapuri..popularly known as Elephanta Caves

Gharapuri is the name by which Elephanta caves were known prior to the arrival of Portugese. The present name can be attributed to the the stone structure of elephant which was carved out of stone. From then the island came to be known by the name Elephanta caves.

How to reach

This historically rich place can be reached from Gateway of India in a ferry. The ferry services starts around 8:30 - 9:00 am in the morning and costs 150 per person for to and fro.
Wiki page provides the major details..historical details.

,

View of Gateway of India and Taj hotel

Maheshmurti cave

The sculptures of Gharapuri are larger than life form and are fascinating.

Nighoj and many more..

Potholes..pandavas..hot sun..bairavanath..U might be thinking what is the relation between all these..our trip on a single day..:)

Route Plan

From Pune: Pune-nagar road ->Ranjangaon->Nighoj->Ganeshkind->bhairavnath->Daryadevi->Dokeshwar Takale-> Pune.

If you are travelling in mar-April season you can skip Ganeshkind to Dokeshwar part. These places are worth visiting in monsoon, but it is your choice. We visited all of them in April.

The other plan will be

Pune-nagar road->ranjangaon->nighoj->spend till evening in Morachi chincholi

I think the second plan is best for Mar-Apr and the first one in monsoon.

Nighoj

Nighoj is less famous for its natural potholes and more famous for the miracle

Parvati Darshan

Parvati Darshan is a good option for short trip within Pune. You can spend a evening at nearby Sarasbaug and then visit the temple. The sunset from  the temple terrace will be great. We have already visited Sarasbaug so we directly when to Parvati temple.

Parvati temple is near to Swargate. The temple is on top of a short hill, there is a path of steps to reach the temple. The steps are large and made slant inline will the slope of the hill, not a place for high heels. The temple area is maintained very well with good greenery. One can find trees with there scientific names and local name. 

Devdeveshwar & Parvati temple

Main temple of Devdeveshwar and Parvati

I was sweating by the time i reached the temple, I shall vouch

Land of Strawberries

Mahabaleshwar, much awaited place. I have been waiting for an year to visit this place. We visited this place a month after visiting Trimbakeshwar, in Jan..thanks to my brother's visit.
Mahabaleshwar is famous for many scenic points, temples and mouth watering strawberries hence the name Land of strawberries...
We started from Pune and reached Mahabaleshwar via panchgani around 11:00 am. Enroute we found many industries thriving on Strawberries.

Kates point

Supporting a Marathi saying "Santh vaahate Krishnamaai" which means "quiet flows Krishna", the river here appeared very calm. The view from Balakwadi dam is spectacular. The serene blue water competes with sky in colour..

Balakwadi dam view from Kates point

 Needle hole point

Elephant head..view from needle hole point

From Kates point we went to needle hole point, i would prefer it as Elephant head point :)

Trimbakeshwar

Famous for: Jyotirlinga and starting point of river Godavari

How to reach: From Pune, the travel will take around 4.5 to 5 hrs. From Nashik it will be about an hour. Good way is to stay in Nashik for a night or opt for night travel as the road between Nashik and Pune will not allow you to even overtake a vehicle  Start from Pune in the evening you will reach Nashik by night. Start for trimbakeshwar early in the morning, as the day proceeds the visitors may increase. After Darshan you can spend the evening in Nashik, visit all the places near Panchvati and return to Pune.

i think this will be my shortest blog..as it is more of religion than of nature..

Bhramagiri, the starting point of river Godavari

We started our journey early morning in Nashik, we reached Trimbakeshwar around 8:00 am. The rush was very less..we planned to have darshan and head for Bhramagiri(starting point of river Godavari). But our friends opted to have special pooja as it was the auspicious day that too the last karthika samovar.
The pundits where very helpful.  Whoever wishes to perform special puja(we did abhishekam) has to wear traditional dresses. Since only men will be allowed

Panchavati (Nashik)

Famous for: Panchavati and Godavari ghat, Dudhsagar waterfall, Trimbakeshwar and Anjaneri


How to reach: From Pune, the travel will take around 6 to 8 hrs depending on traffic. Good way is to stay in Nashik for a night or opt for night travel as the road between Nashik and Pune will not allow you to even overtake a vehicle  Start from Pune in the evening you will reach Nashik by night. Start for Trimbakeshwar early next morning, as the day proceeds the visitors may increase. After Darshan you can spend the evening in Nashik, visit all the places near Panchvati and return to Pune.

We went to Nashik via shirdi, we started from Shirdi in the afternoon, en-route to Nashik we found many road side stalls selling onions(it was a time when prices were high!!)...You can find many wind mills harvesting the wind energy. The road from Shirdi to Nashik is a single lane and the traffic was horrible after crossing Sinnar. (Later i found a site with alternate route http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-travel-queries/96581-pune-nashik-alternate-route.html)
To avoid heavy traffic our driver has routed through the camp area in Deolali(near Nashik). It was nearly evening by the time we reached Nashik. We wanted to cover the areas in Nashik on that day itself, so we went directly to Panchavati

Bhimasankar..revives your senses

Bhimasankar is one of the twelve Jyotirlinga. Route to Bhimasankar is a diversion from Pune-Nashik highway.Till rajgurunagar(from Pune) the road will be good after that you can't expect a smooth ride..
We did google a lot to know what are the places to be visited. One was hanuman point and the other was gupt bhimasankar. We started early on a Saturday  The route was very beautiful, the road side ground was covered with yellow flowers and small

it's yellow everywhere...

streams of water flowing from the hills...
The temple of Bhimasankar is on a hill, there is ample parking spot provided. Bhimasankar is listed mostly in the south indian tours along with Shirdi. We found many tourist buses in the parking and thought that we may not get darshan soon..may be there might be long queue..!!!But it was destined otherwise.