Ratangad Bhandardara Trek: Nane Ghat

Dear Readers,

Heard a lot of things on Nane Ghat regarding the oldest trade route since 2500 years.I decided to see this place.

Nane ghat is situated on the edge of Sahyadris and was the trade route during the Satvahan era .It was octroi point where tax was collected from traders .There is one stone carved pot still existing and 2500 years back there were many such pots for collecting coins.

History: During satvahan era,Junnar and Pratisthan(Paithan) were amongst main towns of Satvahan kings.Mainly trade route that days was through Vasai port which used to get silk from Greece,Persia(through the olden silk route) and also other goods from Malay islands(Now Indonesia,Malayasia and other group of islands in that archipelago ) .So Vasai was the main port and from there,the goods were been transported through horsebacks to Paithan,Junnar and towns on Deccan pleateau(On this deccan pleateau,Satvahan kings ruled and their kingdom was till Amravati on banks of river krishna near Guntur).

So for business during olden days.this point was very important one.

This place is located near village Ghatghar 28 kms from Junnar(Not to be confused with one near Bhandardara).Basically villages near edge of ghats in sahyadris are called Ghatghar or kokanwadi in marathi.

From Junnar,there is motorable road from both the arms of Manikdoh dam.From the right arm also,there is a road to Nane Ghat but it is 42 kms good road with little bad patches on road, while a road going via Chavand,Kukdeshwar Aptale is 26 kms but a bad road patch for around 10 kms

so it takes around 1 hour to reach this place to reach flat plateau.

Naneghat hill is divided in three parts.A big plateau to right is called 'bhorande/bhorandachyedar' which is a descending route to Bhairavgad,Malshej ghat.

The center part is called as 'Naneghatachi Nali'.It is a road descending into konkan and to the left,there is a huge dyke lifted around 50 meters,forming a thumb like shape called 'Nanacha Angatha'.This is the highest point in Naneghat and from here,one can see the area of around 100 kms right from Bhimashankar-Ahupe,Siddhagad,Durg Dhakoba,Jivdhan till Harishchandragad-Kalsubai-Kulang in Sahyadris.Also one can view the Mahuli range near Asangaon-Kalyan if the environment is clear and also one can view Matheran-Haji Malang mountain ranges ofcourse if the weather is clear.

Hence this area was very important during any king's rule because this point served as watch towers over sahyadris especially during Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and during Peshwas rule.

Caves:

After descending 200 feets from Naneghatachi Nali,you reach the caves.There are numerous caves here(I am saying numerous because those caves are hard to locate so their exact figure cannot be sorted out because some of them are located at difficult locations)

There is one big cave which can accomodate around 50 persons and 3-4 smaller caves in the vicinity.

Inside the cave,there are some writings which are inscribed in Brahmi Lipi.Actually in pre-independence India,there were some statues carved in caves in praise of Raja Satakarni one of the Satvahan king under whom,the Satvahan dynasty flourished and kingdom expanded to a large extent.But unfortunately these statues were broken much before our Archeological survey of India noticed it.

For trekkers,there are numerous combinations

1) Visiting Jivdhan fort from Ghatghar and coming back at Naneghat to stay in cave and proceed through 'Bhorande dar' to Bhairavgad to Malshej

2) From Naneghat,descend down to Vaishakare/Tokawade and proceed to Dhasai for Dhakoba(Famous for its 900 meters straight and deep kokankada,the highest ever rock face exposure in sahyadris) or one can further proceed to Dehri for Gorakhgad and huge Siddhagad(One of the highest mountain from base village in Konkan)

Approach to Nane Ghat

1) Fune: Via Nasik Highway to Narayangaon ,take left about 1 km from Narayangaon and proceed on way to Junnar.From Junnar,there are two ways

a) Proceed on road to Amboli/Darya Ghat(Straight road from Junnar village Chowk) till Aptale and from here,take right for road going towards Chavand-Kukdeshwar till Ghatghar(somewhat bad road for 10 kms).Total distance is 26 kms till Naneghat

b) From Junnar Chowk.take right turn to the road to Lenyadri/Malshej and again around approx 1 km,take left turn on road going towards Manikdoh dam.This road is 42 kms till Nane ghat.

c) Another approach is to go straight on Nasik Highway till Alephata and take left for road going to Kalyan through Malshej Ghat.Descend Malshej Ghat to reach a point 2 kms before Vaishakare village called 'Nanetal' in Marathi which is the starting base for Naneghat in Konkan.From here,it takes 1.5 hours to reach the caves.

2)Via Kalyan

There are frequent buses going to Aurangabad,Nanded,Ahmednagar,Bid and Marathwada parts from Mumbai,hence there is no problem reaching this place from Kalyan and again going back to Mumbai/Kalyan

Bus frequencies

Route 1)From Shivajinagar,there are regular ST buses to Nasik.Reach Narayangaon and from here there are mini buses available every 15-20 minutes to Junnar.

From Junnar,there is a bus to Ghatghar around 9:30 to 10:00 am which reaches Ghatghar around 11:30 am.From here,Naneghat is 4 kms walk

Return bus from Ghatghar to Junnar is somewhere around 4:00 pm

Route 2)From Shivajinagar,there is first bus to Kalyan around 6:30-7:00 am which reaches NaneTal/Vaishakare around 11:00 pm.Actually NaneghatTal is not a ST stop hence you need to request to stop the bus at this point otherwise you have to get down at Vaishakare and come back 2 kms to this place.

Here are some photos

1) Naneghatachi Nali