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| Balyogi Ashram on top of Tungareshwar Hill |
Tungareshwar Hill is located in Vasai. It is located at a distance of 29 kms from Vasai Station and around 70 kms from Powai, from where we left. It has an altitlde of around 2200 feet. Many people say that it is a twin of Matheran and it would not be wrong to say that as it actually look like a Matheran Trek.
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| Trekking trail |
We left from our home around 9:30 am in morning and comfortably reached around 11:15 near the parking on Tungareshwar temple road (it is small street off from the main highway). One can easily identify it from the arch build on the entrance of the road. Paid parking is available or one can also take their vehicle all the way to the top as there is a dirt and muddy road (5-7 feet wide).
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| People enjoying in stream |
We started our trek from the parking. There were a lot of people as it was a holiday on account of Independence Day and also being a Tuesday a lot of people were visiting the Temple and water cascades. The initial atmosphere was not to our liking as there was a lot of crowd and people were making lot of noises from hooters.Very quickly we came across the main water stream which flows beside the hill. We had to get in water as there was no way to get around it. The road after crossing was very muddy at least till the temple which was 4 kilometers away from the stream.
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| Beautiful Flower |
The weather was humid and warm even though there was occasional drizzling. Since we were thirsty and hungry we had a cucumber on the way. There was no shortage of eatables till the temple. On the way up to the temple, we came across the stream once again. There were a lot of people playing and relaxing in the water. We reached the temple in 1.5 hours easily. Even though there is a good road entire way to the temple, there is still a climb which makes people a little tired.
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| Beautiful Flower |
At temple we took a stop and had some Maggi from the tea corner there. Most of the people were visiting the temple only but our destination was Balyogi Ashram which was at the top of the hill. There is another path right of the temple which takes to the top of the hill. After eating and resting for a while we started to walk on that path. We could see few autos, cars and other vehicles every now and then. There were few people walking on the trail. It was very beautiful to see the green hills. We could also see the river stream down the hill. There were two very common flowers through out the hill.
We could hear a lot of chirping and kept looking for birds to click pictures. We did manage to click a couple of good shots of different birds, though we had to struggle a lot to get shots as we had to be on constant lookout for birds. Thankfully my crazy partner has eye of a hawk and was able to spot several birds. I was not able to spot a single bird, unless she pointed to me 😋😋😋.
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| Waterfall on opposite hill |
Even though the trek is easy in terms of grade, it is tiring as it is a constant climb for quite long. We kept climbing, pausing in between, admiring the view from hill. In between we came across a waterfall on another hill. Even it was far, it looked very beautiful and serene from where we were standing. We took a pause there and then moved ahead.
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| Walking through the clouds |
After climbing almost three fourth of the way, we were moving in the clouds which surrounded the hills. This helped to cool us down and alleviate some of the heat were were feeling due to continuous climb. We tried our hand at shooting video blogs, which we we found hilarious when we looked at them later. At this altitude we could only see clouds when we looked down.
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| Final Destination - Balyogi Ashram |
This is where one starts to feel that trek is similar to Matheran trek as it provides same feel. Finally the climb stopped and we came across flat road for a small distance. After that there was a descent for around 10 minutes and we reached the Ashram which also has a temple in the premises. The temple at the top is very old. We reached top around 3:15 pm We took a 15 minute break there, had some dry snacks and water.
On the way back we set a target to reach parking around 5:00 pm, Climb down is very easy as its a flat path all the way down. We took same rout back as we had our bike parked at parking area. In case that problem is not there, one can keep moving ahead on the same path that takes to temple and walk another 4-5 kms to exit on the Vajreshwar Road.
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| Tungareshwar Trek - On the way to top |
Overall it was a refreshing trek and it fulfilled the purpose of tiring us out. On an endurance level it requires medium to high level endurance. On difficulty level it was fairly easy trek due to proper wide trail
Till next trek... Toodles
Hill-Skippers
hill.skippers@gmail.com
P.S. Keep the nature clean. Do not Litter
nice :)
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