Purandar Pictures

Early sight of Purandar from base - Narayanpur

The twin fort of Vajragad as seen from Purandar

The entrance to Balekilla of Purandar

Fortification Purandar

Looking towards the barracks - West side of Fort

From the west end of Purandar - Balekilla and Vajragad in distance

Little monsoon beauty

Narayanpur - Base village from Purandar

The familiar Ranhalad

A hut - on the slopes of fort

Paddy

Purandar

My last weekend went uneventful. This weekend three of us set out for Purandar on our bikes. We had fairly got used to the road now due to the 2 week earlier visit to Sonori. Purandar is around 4550 ft from MSL per most of the sources on web and is quite deceiving in a way looking at it from the base. There is a twin fort called Vajragad that sits east of Purandar. Purandar is more known for Murarbaji and Treaties of Purandar.

For the direction seeker from Pune :
1] Head from Camp to Kondhwa, continue straight ahead on Kondhwa-Saswad Rd to Saswad. Move further ahead cross the bridge on the Karha river [ dry most of the times, even in rainy season ] Saswad mysteriously never gets a significant rainfall despite being around 30'ish odd Kms from Pune. Take a left towards Bhor. Travel for around 5 odd kms and take a left to base of Purandar.
2] Head to Saswad via Hadapsar. Take a right from Hadapsar towards Saswad via Fursungi. Reach Saswad and follow the rest of directions from #1.
3] Take Pune-Satara Rd. Reach Kapurhole and take a left to famous Balaji temple. Take a left to the base of Purandar after reaching Narayanpur. All these cases, entire distance not more than 50odd kms I guess.

There are lot of ruins around, there is a Kedareshwar temple at the highest point of the fort. This fort is a birthplace of Chatrapati Sambhaji and Sawai Madhawrao Peshwa. Purandar apparently a home to WWII German prisoners of war. There are lot of barracks here and ruins of two churches. Indian army gets this heritage from the British and they are sitting pretty on this land doing nothing and just being a pain in the arse for civilians. They have a *up his* guard here whose job is to deter people from making it to Vajragad or even to Balekilla. I was shocked myself after returning after 2003. Be careful with this s** o* b** ! I ran into this weirdo today, though I would hunt for my chance sometime for sure.