Sunday 21st Sep 2008
Nagpur to Chikaldhara
Chikhaldara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Last week it was Bedaghat, this week it was time to visit the hills, this is only hills located nearer Nagpur. This time we planned this trip in advance I mean did preparation on Saturday, we packed breakfast and lunch, started early morning, reached there before noon and spent 6 hour visiting most of the sightseeing points [there are total 12 points, out of this only 8 are operational at this time (rainy season)] and spending some quality time enjoying the surrounding. The hills are quite stiff and Scorpio performed quite well.
Route: Nagpur-> Amravati->Partwada->Chikhaldara
Plan was to start by 6AM from Nagpur, but was able to get to NH6 only by 7AM, the road from Nagpur to Amravati is being made 4 lane, so lots of construction work going on this, still the road is good enough, the 4 lane in between for almost 50Km is complete so once you cross 40KM from Nagpur you are on super highway and its really surprising to see this 4 lane, signboard marker and service lane all properly marked and in proper shape, even vehicle following few lance rule, that was a great experience, but it end quite fast, once you are nearing Amravati, you face the worst patch. We stopped for breakfast once the 4 lane highways ended, because we knew it would be tough to get space and location to step out of vehicle and enjoy breakfast.
The road from Amravati to Partwada is quite good, even though this is a state highway, it was well maintained and we were able to attain good speed. The first stop was at a small stream when nearing to Chikhaldara, the water seems to rushing from the hills at great speed, we spent few minutes enjoying this stream, and this was the first test of what to come in Chikhaldara.
Ghat road started and guys it was real fun, greeneries all around, the best part was there were almost no traffic from other side, that allowed to negotiate the ghat quite well and still enjoy the surrounding, We came across quite a few villages on the top and some farms also, stopped near a farm for few family shooting [Camcorder], and was able to get few snapshot of the surrounding too.
Image 1: Ghat road
Image 2: small Lake in the valley
Image 3: Farm
Image 4: My Scorpio
After this stop it was all ghat and we entered Chikhaldara, as mentioned above there are lots of sightseeing points, the main point is Bhimkund, this is the place where there are 3 water fall, 2 big and one small, the valley is quite deep and you can hear water gushing in valley. There are 2 wind mills for power generation, they generate 2 MW of power, guys this is the location where you can feel the air, so fresh that you don't want to leave this place.
Most of the sightseeing points have waterfalls, but the best of them are Bhimkund and Panchbol Point, at Panchbol point there are five hills edge and this also called as echo point.
Image 5: Panchbol point waterfall
Image 6: Pancbol view
Image 7: Bhimkund waterfall
Image 8: Bhimkund waterfall 2
Image 9: Windmill seen from Bhimkund
Image 10: Bhimkund stream
There are lots of other images that I need to offload from camcorder and other cam, I will upload them in later.
I hope you people enjoyed the virtual chikhaldara.
Stats: total kms: 540kms
Time: 15hours
Vehicle: Scorpio 4x2 VLX mHawk
Fuel: 48liter
Average: 11.25, this I believe would be good enough of doing that entire ghat in 1-2-3, with one way without AC and returning journey with AC
-Pramod