3rd Feb. 2002

This was my second trek of the year 2002. I went with Sahyagiri this time. There were three other members namely Makarand & his wife, Mandar. We gathered at Borivali st. early morning at around 6:00am. Took our ticket till Palghar, then via Virar local & then Shuttle till Palghar reached at around 8:45am. After breakfast we started at around 9:00am to reach the destination. The fort can easily identified from the Railway station towards east. We wallked almost 12 kms via Nevli Pada(2 km), then Bhagola(3km) & till top. The forest is not that dense. You will find two types of flower especially a fresh Orange coloured palate(3 palates opened on one side) in bunch on the tree which has hardly any leaves. The other is small but beautiful white coloured flower. Many of the other trees started flowering(Mohor). Also continuously till the fort hill we were enjoying cold wind breeze freshening us which ultimately cleaning our lungs with fresh air. We reached on the top at around 12:00noon. We spent some time to look around you will find a complete Palghar city & surrounding other villages also a lake on the west side next to the Palghar Manor Highway. I found good opportunity for boldering on the fort. As usual we found so many writings done by the visitors like their own name & club name on the rocks making it dirty. I request to all this people once again not to do this & help to all of us to make the place clean. We had our lunch & took little nap to regain our energy for the next journey. In the mean while I got a call on my cell phone. One of my office colleague wanted me to see some interesting stuff on the Internet, but when I said I am on the mountain both of us laughed since she wanted me too see the thing eagerly without knowing the fact my whereabouts.

We started at 2:30pm from the top to descend down near the Highway to complete a round trip to this fort targeting the lake direction by 5:00pm. On the highway we got a tempo going towards Vasai, on request he took us to the Vasai St. by 6:00pm. After a small tea break we return to Mumbai via local train enjoying the rush to make our mindset ready for the next day routine. We reached Mumbai(Borivali) at 7:25pm.

Though the place had no such historical importance but from the look this place is also called Nandi Mal. A cluster of rock a little below the highest point is called Nandi with the top rock cluster is Shiva. Two water tanks on the top. No fortification left at all except the holes pitched in the rocks for building purpose.

Route:  Mumbai-Palghar-Nevali-Bhagola-Kaldurg-Highway-Vasai-Mumbai
What to See: Kaldurg water tank, Devkhop Lake, Boldering at Kaldurg

13th July 2003

Last one & half year I used to travel daily via Thane-Ghodbandar Road, one of the lush green belt road connecting thane & borivali. Every time I pass the road atleast once I used to see the top most pyramid shape mountain towards north. When first time I saw it, I wonder it must have something special to find about this mountain! I asked one of the experienced mountaineer & got to knew that the mountain is Kamandurg (652m). After knowing that it's a fort; my adventure mind had hard coded in the memory that we(bhramanti) should visit the place sometime. Practically it happened on 13th July.

It was a memorable trek for bhramanti where record (31) participant attended. This time the leader was Gyaniji who recently got engaged. The crowd was kind of mixture from child to adults. We all gathered at 6:30am at Vasai. We traveled by ST Bus to Reach Kaman via Tungareshwar (chinchavati) route. After a seep of tea we started our trek which is around 4km till the village called Devkuni, it took around 45 min.. The monsoon made the area looks like a lush green bedsheet, while Kaman was hidden in the clouds. Though we were aware of the direction & probable route; since all were first timers their was little doubt regarding the route. We cleared all our doubts with the help of locals. On the way we crossed 2 shallow river. At one point we took a guide to avoid waste of time in search of the route. But our efforts failed to accompany with the local guide who was a boy. He was little scared from the tiger; recently one attacked on the locals who as per him is his sister. Anyway we didn't bothered much & explored our route till the Water cisterns. We were terribly irritated due to mosquito in the jungle, it was kind of mob trying to byte on our skin whenever we are immovable. We were little relaxed when we reached on the platue from the south ridge of Kamandurg. After the col One has to do (moderate) rock climbing to reach near the Water cisterns. It tooks 2 & half hrs. from the devkuni vilage for us till the water cisterns. The height at this place is around 1600ft, we took almost 4 hr. to reach here from Kaman village. Then to reach on the high point of the Kamandurg one has to have little rock climbing experience or trust on his/her climbing skill since it's steep with loose soil. Six members among us explored the high point though they didn't find any fortification except a water cistern on the way. Towards northeast Asheri fort can be seen in the clear atmosphere from top. Also one can find the Thane-Ghodbandar Road & little view of Mumbai from this place. It was good part for us that rain didn't showered on the top which made the rocks dry helping us to safely descend down. It took 3 & half hr. to all of us to reach near the river. The water was clear & almost all had a deep inside to clean themselves & get refreshed with the joy of enjoying the river flow. We return back to Vasai by local transport & end our another memorable trek.