Long awaited adventure sport day came in my life on 28th august 2016, when we started our trip to kolad white water river rafting. On 28th morning we started from Pune at 5:30 AM & headed towards kolad village situated on northwest of Raigad district in Maharashtra. While going through tamhini ghat we all had beautiful views of valley fully covered with clouds, looking like whole earth covered itself by white & blue clouds blanket. We had some snaps there & after descending tamhini ghat, we stopped at small hotel & had our breakfast of themple & had tea there. Finally we reached our destination at 9:00 AM at blue bulb adventure club.
There we meetup with our POC, we were asked to sign a disclaimer right away, acknowledging the risks involved in this sport & after getting all instructions which we need to follow while rafting. The instructors are well trained, friendly and approachable. We formed groups of seven eight members and started our rafting. It was thrilling experience in almost 2 hours rafting, which included normal path at the start for 15 minutes, then some killing dangerous risky rock patches, feeling like gone it lasted for next 30 minutes. Kundalika River promises Grade 3 rapids, ideal for new and professionals. Ten rapids with funny names like Johnny Walker and Mini Mouse are rough enough to give you an adrenaline rush. Then after in between we took halt for 10 minutes in the forest on the route. When we started again did some craziest things in the still water, like holding hands on the rope & dipping heads in river, jump into the river 30 feet deep. Thanks to the life jackets, because of which even if you don’t know swimming you can jump in river. Our instructor left us in the river by ourselves for over an half hour while we played and splashed water on each other; and enjoyed some quiet moments with the view, clearly one of the best I’ve seen in my recent travels. It was a serene experience with the only audible sound of gushing water and chirping birds. At last we had funny race with co participants & reached the end point of rafting.
From there our bus picked us & dropped at other place where next events were waiting for us, kayaking, river crossing, zip line and boating. For making it cake walk it was heavily raining that day. There again we filled the disclaimer form & started zip line & river crossing one by one. It took almost next 2 hours for our 32 participants to complete that event.
Final one was kayaking for which they took us to the other side of river where an artificial lake waiting for our masti & fun. There we got few single person & few double person kayaks, enjoyed a lot for next one hour in the rain again.
Finally at 4:00 PM all our events arranged are finished. We were too hungry because of full day adventures. After changing our wet cloths, we had our lunch arranged by blue bulb club & the time came to say bye bye to the adventures place. We started our back journey to Pune & reached at 10:00 PM.
Note :
- Kolad River Rafting is open throughout the year depending on the release of dam water every morning.
- It is advised to book at least a day prior. I even chose the option of 50% advance payment. Don’t forget to carry a copy of the invoice.
- On booking, you are given the contact number of the river rafting operator with whom you can co-ordinate for route and directions. You will need his help
- Carry spare clothes, obviously! There are decent mobile shower rooms with changing facility.
- Each raft accommodating eight people are sent in batches of 3 and 4 at a single time. Depending upon the flow of the river, there are 3 batch timings – 9:00am, 11:30am and 1pm.
- You may be asked to wear comfortable closed shoes.
- Monsoons are the best time to visit for a scenic drive while the river brims with waters.
- Photo Credit to Rahul Chandure & Avinash Bhavsar.
Escape Explore Discover 