Raigad

Fort : Raigad (2851 feet above MSL)
Region : Raigad
Grade : Easy

Raigad is the capital of all the forts of Shivaji. It is situated 22 km from Mahad and there is a whole district which has the name derived from this fort.

Raigad is a very big fort with many of the things quite present on this fort. There is a hotel too on top and facilities for living are too good. Myself and some friends decided to go to Raigad in the month of December 2004. We left by 10.21 local from Chinchwad and reached Shivajinagar. From Shivajinagar we took a bus to swargate and entered the swargate ST stand.

From Swargate we took an Asiad Bus for Mahad. The route was via Katraj Ghat -Bhor phata - Bhor - Varanda Ghat - Mahad.

The road at Varanda Ghat was too bad and the ghat was too dangerous and we were scared to our limits when on the ghat. It was a long ghat. Finally at about 4 in the evening we reached Mahad. From Mahad we got an ST bus which goes right upto the base of Raigad. We reached Raigad at around 5.30pm with plenty of sunlight. We decided to climb through the steps. Its an easy way up there with steps right upto the top and no problems. There is a rope way too which goes up but we decided against it.

We climbed on through the steps for 1 hour looking at the scenery on the way while going. We also saw the Hirkani Buruj on the way.

Finally after an hour we reached the darwaza of the fort. We could see the vast expanse of the fort and climbed towards the place where we would rest for the night. We had a sumptuous dinner and then did some time pass talking for sometime.

Finally we decided to have a night walk. Being december it was too cold out there and we were shivering. Finally we came and slept at around 11pm. Morning we woke up freshened up and finally started exploring the fort. For exploring Raigad you need atleast 2 days as its a very big fort.

We saw the bazaar peth (market place) which is still intact. We saw Chhatrapati's throne and the durbar which were still intact and the ASI were making amends to some broken structure. It is said that the throne of Maharaj was set of pure gold and with precious stones on it. The English when they invaded Raigad took away everything with them.

We then had a look around the fort and saw the Mahadev Mandir. The top of the temple was looking like a masjid. In those days Aurangzeb and other invaders used to bomb temples so while designing the temples the worksmen would design the top as a Masjid to fool the invaders. There we saw the samadhi of Waghya and Maharaj. Waghya was Maharaj's pet dog who had died on Raigad.

Then we saw the Kali Kada or Devi Kada which is quite steep. We saw Lingana fort from here and the view was breathtaking from this place. We then decided to climb down the fort. Finally at around 12 in the afternoon we reached the base and hired a six seater and went towards Mahad. At Mahad we had our lunch and boarded the bus to Pune via Tamhini Ghat - Mulshi. We reached Pune at around 8 in the evening and started towards home.

Trek 8 accomplished...