We finally made it to Bhandardara!!

Bhandardara is a village located in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra about 185 km from Mumbai. 

It had been almost 3 years since the first time we planned to visit Bhandardara. But every time due to some or the other reason we always missed out on this trip. Even during our previous Trip to Nashik we were much close to Bhandardara but we still did not make it because we were to lazy to get out of our Ac room and ride in the hot sun. After multiple attempts to visit and witness the beauty of Bhandardara, today we are finally here!

Splendid view of Bhandardara

This road trip was a little bit different from our previous trips. All our trips till date always started from Mumbai, but this time we stared  off from different destinations just to be united into one as “Urban Riders”. 

The Urban Riders

We all geared up for our ride. Our gears consisted of long pants, jackets, shoes, riding gloves and the "must gear" Helmet. For us these gear was a must for a safe ride in all our trips.

[Tip: Always wear long pants preferable something rugged like jeans, shoes and Helmets because your safety is Paramount]. 

There were four riders from Mumbai and one from Pune and we had decided to unite at Murbad which was the best connection according to google maps.

From Pune: [Just me and my Bike!!]:

My ride started-off about the same time my buddies started from Mumbai. The route for me was Pune-Lonavala-Khopoli-Karjat-Murbad. According to google maps my lonely-ride was going to be 136 km long and the time to reach the destination was about 2.5 hours. My ride through the National highway 4 has always been fast, but today I was stuck between huge trucks finding a gap to slip through this never ending fleet of trucks. I was wondering what had happened all this time I was fighting through this chaos and when I reached the end of this chaotic traffic what I saw was really disturbing. There was a horrible car accident that had taken place. The Sight of this accident gave me the chills and it took me a while to digest the scene of the accident. After taking a break I continued my ride towards our meeting point @Murbad. The route till Khopoli was easy as I was accustomed to these roads from my regular journeys from Mumbai-Pune. After that was a road new for me to uncover. The roads after Karjat were truly amazing,. The road was in the middle of a dense forest area with small towns at regular intervals along the way. To be honest it was too creepy riding alone through the forest but there was no turning back, we had to make it to Bhandardara this time!! The moment I arrived in Murbad I saw Cletus riding towards me with the others following him, now that’s called perfect timing!!  And after this it was no longer a lone ride for me #finally.

From Mumbai [Cletus, Cleon, Zeyn, Param and Selwyn]:

From Mumbai the trip started at 6 30 Am. The fastest route to reach Murbad for my fellow riders was to ride through Thane and Kalyan. As always the ride from Mumbai is always the same, hectic and time consuming riding through the bumper to bumper city traffic. When everyone were at Murbad all were surprised at our arrival as we had arrived at the same time even though we started from different locations.

Chai-Vadapav Tapri

We all halted at Murbad to have breakfast. Our eyes were just searched for what a Mumbaikars loves the most “hot vadapav and garam chai”. After eating some delicious vadapav’s we loaded maps on our phones and set out towards Bhandardara. The roads from Murbad to Bhandardara were a bit bad and had many potholes. Riding on such roads usually gives the feeling of an off-road ride.  We halted at many places just to stare a glance at the beauty of nature and sometimes or I should say most of the times we just halted to click pictures to capture the moment.

Clicking pictures is always fun and it also helps to remember the new memories we make together. At one point on the way we just waited to click some pics of all of us one by one banking our bikes on on curve.That was fun!

It took us much time to reach Bhandardara dam with all the amusement we had on the way. Once we reached the main city area, we stopped to have some lunch at a decent restaurant.

After the stomach filling lunch we asked the localites the way to Bhandardara dam and with that we were on our way in the direction pointed by them towards the dam. The Dam was huge and was very beautiful with abundant green trees and shrubs in its vicinity. We visited Bhandardara almost at the end of the season, thus there was not much water in the dam. Even the umbrella falls here was all dried up.

Bhandardara Dam

The view in-front of the dam

Next we took the guidance of some locals who guided us to a waterfall not far from where we had halted. It was really good to see the waterfall. The best time to visit Bhandardara is during the monsoon is what we had heard but still we were here almost after the monsoons. But that’s fine, the main intention was to be at Bhandardara together and that was certainly achieved, thus no regrets. Hehe!

Finally we all made it to Bhandardara after all. It was a really jolly trip. We are sure to visit again, but this time we will plan on visiting during the peak monsoon season so that we see the same water fall with five times the strength. We all left together from Bhandardara and the way back all of us were on our paths to Mumbai. The way back we always select the easy path, thus we got back through the Mumbai-Nashik highway. We do not end our trips “most of the time” without a nice meal. Thus following our tradition we all sat don’t at Mira-Dahisar Mc Donald’s and had an awesome meal.

I guess I have never mentioned this, the reason we dine after the trips is just so that we can decide when? and where? the Urban Riders will go next. Thus with all the fun and the new memories we all said our goodbyes and were back home!

Goodbyes are not forever. Goodbyes are not the end. They simply mean I’ll miss you, until we meet again!!