This is a review on Bhimashankar and Blue Mormon Resort. Those who want 2 days outing, bird watching, trekking will benefit from this.
Bhimashankar is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas in India. You need to take ST buses from Mumbai / Pune to go to this place. Both take about 6-7 Hours. From Bus stand its about 20 Minutes walk down the valley on slope/ steps (Not very difficult) to temple. The darshan of shivalinga can be had immediately if you go early morning or late night (upto 9.00 PM). At other times you may have to wait in Que. Generally you can return to stand in an Hour. Food availble is basic. No proper Lodging boarding here.
The best option is to go by Car. (Narrow cars like Wagor R, Alto preferable.) If you leave Dahisar Check Post at 6.00 A.M., the route is Ghodbunder road, Thana, Bhiwandi Byepass, Kalyan, Murbad (lunch), Malshej ghat, Ganeshkind, Junnar, Ghodegaon and Bhimashankar at 12 to 1 PM. The route is Scenic and a good camera is a must. 10 Kms before Bhimashankar, you see a board to your left indicating Blue Mormon Resort (Blue Mormon is a name of dark navy blue butterfly).
The resort is 2 Kms inside. There are many small cottages here with 3-4-5 bedded rooms. For lodging this will cost you Rs. 300/- per person/per day. That means a 4 bedded room will cost you Rs. 1200/- per day. A full lunch cost Rs. 100/- per peson, BF Rs 25/- etc. The rates are reasonable and management very co-operative. The accommodation is basic and clean with cots, bedding, Commode type WC & bathroom attached. No mosquitos if you take care to close the door before sunset. No TV, Games, swimming pool etc. but Horse riding, Boating at Rs. 20 to 50/- per person.
The resort is spread over a very large area and you can walk for a hour inside the area. There are 4 artificial lakes, temple etc. inside. You will see lots of flowers, roses inside. The atmosphere is very cool till March - April. There are few points like sunset point etc. to visit on foot.
To trek in Jungles nearby you need some locals with you, to show the road, otherwise you may get lost with no one around. Resort management will help in giving you guide. On road to Bhimashankar from resort, on your right you will see board "Khondavale". Here you can take car inside for about 2 Kms through dense forest. Giant squrrels are sometimes seen here, if you are lucky. For bird watching you need a binocular 8x35 size to 10x50 size. For Photographing birds you need minimum 20X optical zoom camera. DSLR cameras with telephoto lens are better. Birds in this area are mostly small in size.
When you reach in the afternoon, you can go round the resort bird watching in the afternoon, evening, in the night visit temple (by Car), Next morning again do birdwatching and trek in jungle and leave by about 2 PM to reach Mumbai back by 9 PM. This two days picnic is sure to revitalize you. Take care to keep petrol tank full, properly inflate tyre, keep spare wheel. No help of any kind for repairing will be available around 30 kms radius of Bhimashankar.
You can visit website of "Blue Mormon, Bhimashankar" for advance booking.
You may see my Photos of Bhimashankar, Malshej etc. in Photo-section, tomorrow.