वेडात मराठे वीर दौडले पाच(च)!!!

भटक्या टोळीला भटकंती करायला काहीही निमित्त पुरते. When our mail thread reaches the count of 50 around, its more than enough for us to finalise our trek. So is the truth for this time too. We decided to head our bikes to Naneghat, this time via Pune-Nashik Highway, Junnar. As the decided it was compulsory overnight trek. So it was obvious that we have to carry more baggage with us. And except Sourav, none of us was having overnight experience. So it was must for all of us to meet once, before "The Day". We decided to meet at Cafe Diamond near Auroro Towers, Camp on Friday evening so that we can draft the complete plan and decide who will take what. The enthu members were Girish, Santosh, Shrikant, Sourav and me (Pankaj). Lot of discussion over a cup of tea and couple of creamrolls finally gave a output of fine point to point plan. All responsibilities delegated and decided to meet at convinient places on next morning.

As we reached at Nashik Phata and found that Shrikant wasn't there, we called him, and to our surprise he was in bed that time. After 45 mins of waiting finally he came. We settled our lagguage on bikes along with us and rammed the bikes throught the cold winds towards Junnar. A delocious breakfast of Misal-Paav at Swamini near Rajgurunagar enrgised us till Junnar via a darshan of "Shree Vighnahar" of Ozar. The road from Ozar to Junnar was really pathetic which enroutes the Vighnahar Sugar Factory and few antenae of the GMRT research centre.

Our plan in Junnar was to buy grocery for our cooking and a have a lunch there. Bought some Daal, rice and papad, spices etc required for the cooking and after a lunch we marched towards the Ghatghar village. From this point, we started getting a feel like trekking in the Sahyadris. The ranges of Sahyadri started posing in front of us and we cannot resist ourselves from stopping for some photography. Leaving the backwaters of the Manikdoh dam on the right and the scenic Sahyadri on the left we were hoping to speed our bikes and reach the Ghatghar village (which is 32kms from Junnar) in little more than half an hour. But very soon these expectations fell to the cruelty of the "so called road".

That thing can only be treated as a road because it has no vegetation on the curves and few crushed stones were laid all around. It was real dirt dirt track motocross for us and we were feeling like a "Dakar Rally" participants while travelling along. It was real pathetic road and we could hardly spped our bikes over 20kmph. Santosh was telling me that "there is no signs of any help around if any of the bike breaks down or puntures". And goshh..... it really happened. Sourav's bike got punctured. All of us went blank in that situation, but still Shrikant was trying to keep environment alive by taking the snaps of the flat tyre and our flat faces too.

We first thought of removing the wheel and get it repaired from the nearest (?) tyre shop/tapari. But the toolkit also wasn't in a mood to respond us, and we were not able to move the bolts by a micrometer. After around 15mins we found a gentleman on his bike coming from behind. But even his bike was punctured. Then he advised us to remove the tube valve and ride the bike with single rider till the Ghatghar village, there you can get the tyre repaired from himself. The name of that gentleman was Mr. Ramesh Pansare and remember, he is the only person who can provide a help in the circumstances. Then Sourav exhausted all his muscle power to ride and control the punctured bike for 7kms. But alas we reached Ghatghar after exhaustive 2hours.

It was pretty strange that till Junnar, we passed 110km in 2 hours and another 2 hours to travel the 32kms till Ghatghar at 5.45pm.

And other people who are coming here please remember the name Mr. Ramesh Pansare.