Trek to Dukes Nose

A short summary:

This was another trek program arranged for CAS that was initiated by the same classmate's teacher Karn Sir. He actively participates in service and action activities. He initiated the partly dangerous trekking activity at a hill about 60km from Pune in Lonavala. This trek was planned as going to the top of the hill to enjoy the scenic view.

A day account:

On Sunday the 12th of July, we went for a trek to a place about 60km from Pune called Dukes' Nose. Early in the morning, at around 5:45am, I reported at railway station to catch a local train to Dukes' Nose. My friends arrived and we hopped in to the train. Being early in the morning, everyone was sleepy and most slept off. But, I was hungry, ate some snacks I had taken with me and then slept.

We reached our destination and woke up unwillingly. We had our breakfast before starting our trek. We were divided into four groups to ensure our safety better. In breakfast, we had sandwiches. We then started our trek. It was mostly muddy steps at first but soon, we reached a flat land amidst our trek where we waited for a while and had some fun games to pass the time and had some snacks. The place was really windy and being monsoon, we had a slight drizzle.

After we completed lunch, we continued our trek and soon reached the outer gate of the fort. Ahead, most of our trek was steep trail going to the top of the mountain. It was tiring to keep climbing as there were constant rains (It rained about 7-8 times in total during the whole trek). We took breaks in the middle refreshing ourselves with water. Now, the trek was getting worse with slippery stones, thorny trees on sides and steep road. But by the time we reached the top, no one regretted the amazing view with a lot of fog. We hail-fully reached the top. We enjoyed a photo session up there and had some fun conversation along with our objective of understanding the importance of keeping the place clean.

On the way back, the steepness with the slipping road was much more difficult than on the climb. We ate some snacks and drank juices which we had brought for ourselves when we reached back at the flat land. We then played some fun games such as "Dog and the bone" and "Tug of war". We had another photo session before we departed back down to the foot of the mountain where we had started our long trek.

We then had lunch in our friend's restaurant at some distance from the starting point. We had some fun, relaxed and also changed our clothes as we were drenched after the constant rains. This was our last activity at this place. We started walking back to the railway station. At the local railway station, we missed our first train and so we had to wait a long time for the next one which was delayed. At around 6:00pm, we started back in the train. It was a hectic day of activity by the time I reached home at about 9:00pm.

-Suhas

14/07/15