Trails of Iiryacakrikaa Muni: Cliff Hunt Ride

It was a dull Friday evening on 16th of January and the thoughts of college reopening on Monday had started bothering me . I went googling in search of a nice destination near Mumbai and zeroed in on Jawhar - Vikramgad for a Sunday ride . Saturday night i happened to see Amol's post, in Mumbai Bikers Club(MBC) forum , of riding to Malshej Ghats. I immediately called him and confirmed my presence , by then i had forgotten about Jawhar since Malshej was a place i wanted to visit since long time .
Sunday Morning at 7:45 met him at Nirmal Lifestyle Mulund and the ride started . Halted near Kalyan for a breakfast . The hotel looked decent but the idli's i had was strictly okay . Two R1 s zoomed past us and that brought a smile on my face . By 9 we left the place for Malshej Ghats and by 9:30 we had crossed Murbad . Near Murbad bus depot i almost hit a cyclist , a fault of mine . He was lucky and i didn't dare to look behind . After crossing Murbad the roads were awesome and almost empty . Amol was a ripper and I prefer cruising . He was ripping for a few kms and then would wait for me to arrive . I got a call from nature and stopped to answer and what a place to piss , awesome feeling in being one with nature.

Amol was still ripping and i was stopping and clicking pics and met Amol at a place where the view was simply mind blowing.

After 10 minutes of admiring the nature and the view , we left for Malshej Ghats . After reaching the top of Malshej , Again brought out the cam and captured some moments .

Few moments later we were riding to Shivneri Fort clicking pics on the way and soaking in the view nature had offered me . The roads were good with some bad patches in between. Shivneri is about 50 kms from Malshej. As soon as we reached the fort we wasted no time in begining the climb . Amol was explaining me the meaning or rather logic behind the names of gate .
Some of the places on the fort we visited.
Shiv Kunj : Shiv Kunj is a memorial, in honor of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Inside Shiv Kunj there is a beautiful idol of Bal Shivaji and Jijabai .
Kadelot: This is the place where prisoners were punished by throwing them down the fort. This point is on the northern end of the fort.
Ganga Jamuna : These are the water cisterns behind the Shiv Kunj. Water in these cisterns is potable. This Tank was an architectural marvel . On whole of Shivneri there are more than a dozen water tanks.
Shiv Janmasthan: This is the place on the fort where the birth of Shivaji Maharaj took place. This place is named as Shiv Mandir. There a cradle of the warrior king.

To the East is the Junnar Township . To the west are the breath taking views to the north is the Kadelot point . Didn't visit the southern part .

West of Shivneri

Junnar Township to the East

The kadelot Point to the North

The fort is very clean and there are 4-5 well maintained gardens, but we humans are prohibited from stepping inside . There are many people selling Lemonade and Buttermilk on the way. On my way out of the fort I found some huge Honeycombs , never seen such big ones in my life before. It takes around 90-100 Min's to climb up and down the fort . By the time we reached the base it was 1:30 and I was hungry and so was Amol . Amol wanted to buy some dried grapes from Lenydri , had a halt there and were on our way to MTDC resort in Malshej for lunch. On the way we saw a lake and immediately were tempted into riding till the bank. Some clicks there and we were at the MTDC resort within 30 Min's . I was there i remembered that it was the same lake i had seen on pulsurge's ride . Lunch was pretty good and not expensive . But what followed was the most interesting part of the ride . After the lunch i happened to sight some cliff and in no time we were there brandishing my digi-cam. Some slippery moments and some pics later we found another cliff near the Malshej tunnel which looked inaccessible .

After some clicking , left the resort for Powai , as we reached the tunnel Amol got a wild idea and we tried to make way into the inaccessible path i was mentioning above. The path was very narrow ant the stones and gravels made it more difficult . I could see my death couple of inches to my right . Somehow i managed to gather guts and reached a safer place . Clicked some pics and left for Mumbai.