An adventurous trip to Pawna Lake

Taking breaks from the routine office work and enjoying life by planning one day or weekend adventurous trips is becoming a part of the corporate culture. People seek quick escape routes to come out the rat race and worklife pressure to explore adventurous sports and experience the adrenaline rush. The amount of freshness and relaxed you get is difficult to express in words. This is what you get to hear from an adventurous sports enthusiast. One such trip was planned by my office friends to Pawna Lake near Lonavla, Maharashtra.

I was excited to be part of this trip even though I did not wish to explore the adventureous sport of Paragliding. The Pawna Lake is famous for Paragliding and Camping sites near the lake. We arrived at the Paragliding site after taking small breaks at Datta Snacks near Panvel for misal pav & vada pav, Kamats at Khandala for tea/coffee and final one at Lion’s point at Lonavla for quick munching of onion/potato pakoras, masala corn and vegetables maggi, my all time favourite .

The beautiful Pawna Lake is surrounded by Sahyadri mountains. The calm water with a background of huge mountains and pleasant weather makes you feel the real nature. And the scenic beauty is so mesmerising that it makes you stay longer and you will not even realise how time passed. I felt like having a second home here far from the hustle and bustle of the city life.

The excitement within the team increased as we reached the Paragliding site. On the site, the event instructor was briefing the first timers and pilots were getting ready to fly. The Paragliding sport is totally depends on the wind conditions. We had to wait for almost 2 hours for the first flight to take off. My friends who took the flight were on cloud nine after the experience.

Here are some quick reactions after Paragliding. Kedar Salgaonkar, the number cruncher and braveheart from group was the first one to try Paragliding says, “Kuch bhi nahi yaar, it was an easy flight. Just go for it.” Anjali Mehta, the foodie and our default group leader was super excited. She says, “It was a very beautiful experience which can’t be expressed in words.” Prashant Patil our quiz master who was asking several questions to instructor before the flight was literally jumping after achieving his feat.

Prashant says, “You feel like a bird once you are up in the sky. And the bird’s eye view of the entire landscape was beautiful.” Our Dabaang boy in the group, Pramod Kadam had a great time on the top. He says, “Aerobatics moves done by the pilot while flying were a bit scary but he enjoyed the most.” And finally our Anna the fitness freak, Bhaskaran S says, “It was a super cool flight and everyone should try it once in a lifetime.”

Neeket Agarwal, the youngest and very enthusiastic chap in our group was our trip coordinator. He along with Amit Vishwakarma our foodie friend missed the flight experience due to change in the weather conditions. On lighter side, Amit even expressed his wish to carry potato wafers packet while on the flight. According to him, we just have to sit comfortably while the pilot flies. So why not eat wafers and enjoy the flight 🙂 That was good one, Amit 🙂

Shailendra Samaleti our chocolate hero had some memories of Parasailing. So he stayed away from Paragliding and decided to try his hands on Photography. Nilesh Zagade our Michael Schumacher and Selfie expert had some reservations about this sport so didn’t give it a try. For me, somewhere the feeling of responsibilities didn’t allow me to try this sport.

After paragliding, some members headed back to Mumbai. And we went to the camping site near the Pawna Lake to experience the tent stay, enjoy the barbeque food and camp fire. It was a bumpy ride on small village roads. We somehow managed to reach the destination.But our dream of staying in a tranquil place was shattered.

We saw more than 40-50 tents spread across the edge of an oval ground near lake. There were people around the tents enjoying the DJ songs arranged by the camp organiser. It was a kind partying place which we didn’t expect. After settling down, we cooked our own barbecue food and enjoyed the same.

In the late evening, we were served barbecue food and dinner by the camp organiser. The food was good to fill our tummies. However the serving arrangement were not that good. Even, the washrooms were limited for more than 100 people around. Before going for a sleep we enjoyed the campfire.

Next day in the early morning, we captured some nice pics of sunrise from the tent area. The beautiful Pawna Lake again attracted us for a photo shoot session. It was risky though, Bhaskaran and Nilesh ventured into the lake to see the crocodiles and other species. The expressions on their face were showing how much they enjoyed the swimming than the fear of crocodile. We came back to tent area, had our breakfast and checked out from the camping site for our journey back to Mumbai.

While we were on the return journey just before Lonavla, we saw huge trees spread across to the left side of the road. A kind of entrance to the jungle. We stopped and thought to spend some time under the trees. It was a nice feeling as we were in the actual jungle under huge trees and enjoying chirping of birds. We also found a fig tree and ate some ripen figs as well. After a while we moved ahead in our return journey.

Our next stop was Buvanchi Special Misal, popularly known as Buvachi Misal at Lonavla. It is famous for Misal Pav and Vada Pav. It was 12 noon, we filled our tummies with delicious misal pav and butter milk. On the way, we bought some chikkis and jelly chocolates at famous Maganlal stores for our family members and parted our ways there on to reach back our homes in Mumbai.

24 & 25 March 2018 will be memorable days for me as all had agreed and adjusted their plans just because I and Kedar could attend this trip. I would like to thank you all for waiting us to join this trip and making it such a memorable one. Special thanks to Neeket for arranging such a wonderful trip for all of us. Shashi Ranjan our marathon runner friend couldn’t join us due to ill health. But he still managed to arrange for the marinated food prepared by his wife. Special thanks to him and Mrs. Ranjan. We missed you Shashi and all other team members who couldn’t join the trip.

And the last big thanks goes to Nilesh for making my journey an adventurous one 🙂 I really enjoyed your driving skills. And I mean it buddy 🙂

I’ll catch you guys in our next trip, till then let’s get back to work and enjoy our daily adventurous trip to reach office by Mumbai trains 🙂

Here are some pics captured by me during the trip.

Misal pav and Vada pav at Datta Snacks, Panvel

Vada Pav at Datta Snacks, Panvel

Beautiful view of mountains from Lion’s point, Lonavla

Beautiful of view Shivling mountain from Lion’s point, Lonavala

Potato pakoras at Lion’s point, Lonavla

Onion pakoras at Lion’s point, Lonavla

Vegetables Maggi at Lion’s point, Lonavla

Sweet Buns prepared by my wife, Varsha Baikar

My Friends at Lion’s point, Lonavla
Pramod, Prashant, Nilesh, Anjali, Shailendra, Bhaskaran, Amit,
Kedar and Neeket (Left to Right)

Bird spotted at Lion’s point

Jumping jacks at Paragliding site

Arrived at Paragliding site, Pawna lake

Paraglider is getting ready

Getting ready to fly

Beautiful view just before sunset

Paragliders enjoying the flights

Nice view of sunset under paragliding canopy

Beautiful sunset view at Pawna Lake

Different cloud view

Beautiful view after sunset at Pawna lake

Me and My friends at the Paragliding site

Sunrise view from the camping site at Pawna lake

Sunrise view at background of tents at Pawna lake

Mountain view from Pawna lake

Reflection of mountain in Pawna lake

Nilesh and Bhaskaran enjoying swimming in Pawna lake

Long tailed shrike spotted at Pawna lake

Camping site view from Pawna lake

Forest near Lonavla

Forest near Lonavla

Common fig fruits

Relaxing on road near the forest, Lonavla

Misal at Bhuvanchi Special Misal, Lonavla

Bhuvanchi Special Misal

Travel tips/cautions:
1. Make use of Google Maps
2. If you are travelling in groups with different cars then follow each other.
3. Control your F1 drivers on the express highway.
4. Carry sufficient water bottles while going to the Paragliding site as there are no shops near by. 1-2 bottles per person.
5. Keep the Paragliding site clean. Don’t throw away your empty water bottles and snacks wrapper.
6. Camping site is not recommended for a single family travel as it in interior place. Only if you are with group of 4-5 families you can enjoy the trip and stay at the camping site.
6. You must try Misal Pav at Datta snacks and Buva Chi Misal