Drive towards Bhor was a known one, and the Bangalore highway makes it much more easy. post Bhor, the 10 min drive takes you to Bazarwadi and gives you a clear view of the intimidating Rohida in the background.
Post parking the vehicle near the school in the village, the climb starts right from there. if required people are around to tell you the directions, but no place to have tea or vada-paav at the base. Have it at Bhor itself while coming in and pack it up for the lunch as well.
The start of the climb provides you a very awesome view of the fort and the near vertical climb :) you can very well negotiate the steepness by going a little bit around the hill which takes a little bit more of your time, but who is in a hurry with such beautiful nature around.
look for yourselves :)
We kept wondering about the "Vichitragadh" name and within 30 minutes of our initial climb, we came to know just why. Ferocious winds hit us like hurricane, one can easily get toppled over if he is not cautious, such was the speed. It was just raw nature at its worst. Posing for photographs was really useless, could keep ourselves and the camera still at that point.
The climb from here onward gets nearly vertical, and scary to the core, with all the wind ready to throw you off the cliff. The ridge that you see in the above snap, is the actual path to climb the fort. We had to literally climb with hands and foots firmly on the ground :) with the kid in tow, that was some fun. The path just goes up and up.
But once you see the stones on the first door of the fort, you know you'ave arrived. the fort provides you number of photo opportunities, and the view doesn't let you down with its awesomeness. There is nice little shelter in the form of recently renovated Rohideshwar temple, it was locked, but still the verandah provides enough shelter for you take some respite from the rains and fog and the ferocious winds.
Weather god provided us some window and gave us enough light to move around the fort post lunch, and see the awesome points around, the watchtowers are in pretty good shape and from there the view is just so awesome. According to the documentation you are able to see couple of forts like rajgadh, torna, etc. from here, but we dumb people cudnt make out anything. but were content enough with what was in front of us. its a small fort and within an hour or so, with sight seeing and snaps session, we started our journey back.
The journey back was no different in terms of difficulty with steep downhill and the ferocity of wind continuing to lash us. slowly but cautiously we were down in no time and thus ended an exhilarating journey of Rohida. That was it, trek to Rohida aka Vichitragadh was successfully completed.
A farewell snap of the place depicts the grandeur of the fort.
