Korlai Fort

On 1st October, our Ultimate trekker group planned for Trek to Korlai fort in Revdanda and Birwadi fort in Roha. After confirming with all group members final count was 5 members Mayur, Gajanan (Doctor) , Harshal , Nikhil and me.

Mayur is founder and planner of this trekking group. He planned that we will catch 6-25 am Diwa passenger to reach Roha & will visit Birwade fort. Then we would head towards Revdanda to visit Korlai fort. If we find time on the way we would visit Kashid or Nagaon beach. So Diva station was decided as meeting point.

It is rightly said “that journey is the best where nothing goes according to plan”. So in the morning there was twist in our journey plan. Mayur who was coming from Western line was not able to catch Diva passenger on time. As no other train was available , instead of going to Roha we decided to reach Korlai via Alibag.  So we caught Bus from panvel bus stand heading to Alibag Bus stand . After a travel of about 2 hours on bumpy road we reached Alibag bus stand.  We had our much needed breakfast in a Hotel which was just outside ST stand. Korlai Fort is located near Revdanda , so after having breakfast we did enquiry for bus to Revdanada  . But knowing low frequency of Buses we decided to take option of TumTum . Soon we got a Tumtum & headed towards Revdanada. Tumtum driver was very informative giving us information on nearby attractions and showing us bungalows of some known Marathi actors on the way. On the Revdanada bridge he also showed  us raw iron pieces which failed during transport to adjacent JSW metal factory. Tumtum dropped us to base of  Korlai fort.

From here there is a beautiful road to Korlai fort with wide sea on one side & fort on the other. The fort is located on small hill and we see entry door of fort from base itself.  The road leads us to lighthouse at the foot & from there we can ascent towards fort. To my surprise, Lighthouse is of modern type & not old lighthouse structure which I imagined. The way to fort is easy and takes just 15-20 minutes to reach the top.

The fort is in good condition as compared to other forts in Maharashtra. All the fort walls, doors & cannon are significantly visible.  But what makes this fort really memorable is awesome view of Sea from top . We can also see beautiful Nagaon beach on one side.

This Fort was ruled by Portuguese & signs of it are visible by Cristian locality around the fort and also a ruined Portuguese Church on the fort.

On the ascent to fort Doctor got a new name of Savarkar , as Nikhil discovered that he looks just like Freedom fighter Vinayak savarkar. In photo session on the fort Nikhil took a photo of Doctor with  background sea to resemble Savarkar in Andaman.The photo was good , but wide smile on this Andaman prisoner face spoiled the end effect of photograph .😊

After having a photo session and energy drinks we started our decent.

it was almost 2 pm now and it was time for most important task of feeling out tummies. 

Thankfully we got an auto who dropped us at a place named Tapovan which serves home cooked food.Thoughts of having fresh , delicious fish were lingering in my mind , but it was discovered being ekdashi day & had to opt for Pure Veg thali. The food was delicious. Three vegetables, dal, chapati all were too good . Buttermilk, dahi, Lasoon chatni ,papad, pickle ,Cucumber slice added further to the taste. It was one of very few times for me where I enjoyed Veg food so much.

After having lunch it was time to head for our next destination, Birwadi fort in Chanera near Roha. 

Birwadi fort 

After having lunch we caught a tumtum for chanera village. Some local residences were also accompanying us in tumtum . So we used our Indian skills to accommodate 8 people on 6 people sitting😊. The famous Birla Mandir was in the way , but considering our tight schedule we decided against visiting it. We reached Chanera village after journey of 45 minutes. From there we took auto to reach base of birwadi fort. Base has a beautifully renovated devi Temple.

It is rightly said that “Good start is half done” . But we started the Birwadi trek from wrong path. Instead of starting from Devi temple stairs we started from a path which was ahead of that. After going some distance and trying all visible paths we discovered that we have done Pradakshina of the hill. We were able to see fort on the top but not finding way to reach there. Thankfully after exploring all possible path , we managed to reach the top.One more trekker group also reached there & guided us on right path for descent.After having a photo session we started our descent.

It took us just 30 minutes to reach the base.  We saw a shivaji Maharaj statue on the way back. After a mini halt for some photographs there we caught auto & reached back to Chanera naka. We had tea from local hotel & started enquiry for transport to reach Roha. None of the tumtum drivers were agreeing to come , but thankfully we got bus to reach Roha Bus stand. 

When we reached Roha another twist in travel plan was waiting for us. No direct ST was available from Roha for Mumbai & we had to go to Kolad for Mumabi bus.We waited long at Kolad stand for empty bus which would take us to Mumbai or thane, but all buses were full. With no option left we caught a parel depo bus although no sit was available. Instead of standing in the bus for 3 hours , we got news paper out, layed them on bus floor & thus arranged sitting for ourselves. It was a good option except when somebody was getting down , we had to get up ,make way for them  and then redo our sitting arrangement.we had to do this exercise thrice in the journey.  

Bus reached Mumbai after 12 pm. Nikhil got down at kalamboli & went to her relatives residence.Remaining 4 of us reached sion at 12-35 pm. Me, Harshal & Doctor caught Titwala train while Mayur caught opposite side train to head for western line. Me and Doctor reached home at 1-30 am , while Harshal & Mayur reached home at 2 am.

So that was end of one more memorable trek. Memorable for beautiful view from Korlai, changed travel plan, extensive travel, VIP sitting in bus to reach Mumbai😊 and Pradakshina at Birwadi fort.

On the way back o Mumbai, we were discussing on how wrongly we planned the trek ending up reaching home very late. Mayur told us that we should learn lesson from this experience and it reminded me of beautiful quote of Robin Sharma. 

 There is nothing called mistakes in life. There are only opportunities to learn and grow!!!