27th April 2024, Saturday - 10
Our next destination was Shivneri Fort, the birth place of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The fort is located at the top of the hill at an height of around 3500 feet. From the base one has to climb around 450 steps to reach the top. The distance from the base to top and back to base along with the sight-seeing at the top works out to around 4 kilo meters.
I am not sure about the other group members, but as a trek I found it a bit challenging, especially without proper footwear and that too in the scorching April heat. I was thankful for the dark glasses and the cotton hat which I had taken along. By the time we returned to base I was exhausted and was thankful to get back to the comfort of our air-conditioned vehicle.
We decided to skip lunch and visit Bhima Shankar Shiv temple, one of the 12 Jyotirlinga. Our idea was to have lunch after having Mahadev’s darshan. However HE had HIS own plans for us, HE wanted to ensure that we remember this trip for a long long time!
We saw a serpentine queue waiting for the darshan of the Lord. This place was open to the elements & Suryadev was on his shining best! The Devotees ahead of us in the queue assured that the waiting time would be maximum one hour. We joined the queue, which was moving and halting alternatively. By the time we crossed the open area and reached the place which had some shelter above, an hour had passed.
There were several shops on one side, the queue towards the temple was one side, with a narrow pathway in between. On enquiring with the local shop keepers, we were told that it would take minimum another hour for us to enter the temple. To cut a long story short after a wait of around 3 hours we had one of the best darshan. Probably except myself who had visited Bhimashankar temple earlier, it was the first time for the others. It was around 530/545 PM now and none of us had had lunch yet.
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