My husband once forwarded me a link for Nighoj. Then
googling didn’t came with a lot of information. By that I mean like you get for
every other places around Pune.
It was nowhere in the
list of “Best 20 places to visit around Pune”. Some blogs which I follow where
writers vigorously write about Pune and nearby places, this place was amiss. Anyways,
for us it was one way to spend a weekend not being in home, watching movies and
eating all day.
So Nighoj is some 100 KM from Pune. Nearby places which you
can also visit is Mahaganpati Ashtavinayak Temple and Morachi Chincholi.
Morachi Chincholi is kind of setup where you pay the entry
fee for a day long stay which includes meal, Bullock cart ride, tractor ride
and plenty of dancing peacock views. There is also the arrangements for the
night stay.
Though we decided to give it a miss as I found mixed review
for meal and having native in a village in North India, bullock cart ride and
tractor ride is not new to us. This seems more like a thing for kids. Also ours
was a one day trip and going in Morachi Chincholi means go there and spend
entire day.
So we started at around 8:30 AM without having breakfast. It
was decided to have some fruits on the way. Once out of Pune, we bought some
and concluded that nearby and less glorious places than Pune are in no way less
expensive (except may be rental value).
We first went to Ashtavinayak Temple, which comes in
Ranjangaon area. Mirochi Chincholi came on the way. Temple has a beautiful
entrance, which you cannot miss. Also it is right on the road.
We reached the temple at around 10:30. Inside the temple
premises there is a Prasad counter where one can find the Modak. The modaks
here are I guess are made out of maida with the filling of coconut and sugar. I
guess the actual modak is made entirely of mawa.
Anyways we left temple premises in an hour. Exactly infront
of the temple, on the other side of the road there is a small path going inward. This road will take you straight to Nighoj which is around 27 KM from
there.
This 27 Km entirely will be covered inside the villages. In
midway around there is super beautiful meadows on both side of the roads,
stretched in multiple acres. This sight is something worth of. I mean, we have
not yet been to Nighoj which also only have Potholes to be seen of. But this
place is worth of driving 100 KM. Beautiful nature.
Also it seems we were there
at the right season. There were dark
clouds, but no rains. Otherwise if there had been sunshine, it would be
difficult to stop there. Even if the Monsoon had arrived sometime before, the
grass in meadows would have grown and this cannot be so scenic.
So after about 1 hour since we started from temple, we
reached Nighoj. Now the Potholes site is very near from the road. It’s like you
will cross a bridge made over Kukadi river and on the right side you can see 2
temples and lots of open space. You can park the vehicle there. Potholes are on
the riverbed of the Kukadi river itself.
We first visited the temple, which is of some local deity. One
old woman in temple told that some of
the potholes are of such depths that if one starts digging, he will dig the whole
night. Few children of the village have lost their lives in potholes.
Anyways the old lady was talking in Marathi and we had to
make extra efforts to get some sense out of her talking. But that didn’t seem
to deter the lady. I have seen this mostly in old age people that they will keep on
telling what they have, irrespective of the listener’s ability to understand
the language or any other factor.
So finally we went on the riverbed to experience those
famous potholes. Those potholes are made out of very heavy flow of river water.
Experts from all over the world come here every year to study the phenomenon of
their formation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighoj).
Some of them are simple holes, yet some of them are so
beautifully carved. You will wonder how many years it would have taken by the
water to excavate such charming space.
Though we were not able to see the actual depth of any of
the holes as in mostly all of them water was filled and even if we can see
through water, there were moss at the end and one cannot say much about it’s
thickness or if there is any surface below the moss or just quicksand.
After spending around 2 hrs and having the lunch, we left
for the Pune.
Happy Ghumakkadi :)
Happy Ghumakkadi :)
