Hi Friends,

 First of all thanks to Anitha for building this site. A good one for all of us to exchange experiences.

 I wanted to share with you all about our camping experience at Panshet dam.

 One of the most beautiful lake surrounded by hills and mountains like Tikona at one of its side.

Around 6 of us decided to do our camping last summer at Panshet. We have our own tents and stove to cook our food.

We started around 10 a.m. on Saturday morning in 2 cars. The drive on the expressway was a beautiful one. We reached at lonavala and from there we had to ask for directions for Panshet dam. Around 1 in the afternoon we reached at panshet dam.

We crossed the dam and drove ourselves on a steep road leading us to a splendid view of a very large lake surrounded by hills on all the sides. May be as this lake is surrounded by hills from all sides it still has its natural beauty intact to a good extent. Ofcourse there is a road on which car and local ST buses ply but the traffic is hardly anything.

After drinking in the beauty of the lake and the hills we started our search for a good spot to put our tents. This took us some time as we wanted camp as close by as possible to the water.

After deciding on one place we started to put up our tents and 2 of us started to make some snacks to eat. We usually carry ready to eat food. The two guys were making UPMA and tea. By the time tents were up and bags unpacked, Upma and tea were ready to fill our stomach. It was a beautiful experience to sit near by a lake sipping your tea.

After we had arranged all the things we decided to take a swim in the lake, as I didnt knew swimming I decided to sit on the rocks in the water with rest of them going in the lake. The water was very cold but once again there are no words which can explain how I was feeling.

The time was around 5.30 p.m. the sun had started going down. We scanned through were all the things were kept with all our torches and lamps and emergency lights handy.

Two of us are photographers and they went of with their equipments to capture the sun setting behind the hills.

The rest of us started collecting wood for camp fire and making arrangements for dinner.

It was around 8 p.m. with darkness all around except for our emergency lights and torches. We could hear the grasshoppers making noise.

We had lot of fun talking and humming songs around the camp fire.

By around 11.30 we went in the tents for good night sleep listening to the quitness of the surroundings.

I could not believe when I woke up it was around 5.30 in the morning and I was feeling fresh. Even when I tried to go for sleep I could not. May be with no sound or air pollution I has a very sound sleep. I came out of the tent sitting near the water listening to chirping of the birds and enjoying the sun rise after a long time.

This was beautiful. No words can explain my feelings.

One by one everybody got up we made our morning tea and breakfast.

After that once again we went for a swim in the lake.  (You can also go to trek to tikona. Which is a fairly easy one). The view of the lake and the hills surrounding from the top of Tikona might be breathtaking. We will do this next ime when we are here.

By around 1 we started packing our luggage and tents and we saw two para gliders in the sky. There is a company called Temple Pilots who conduct para gliding courses in this area.

We were ready to leave. It was around 3 in the afternoon. We also decided to explore this camping site in the rainy season also. It might be different experience.

This was one of the most beautiful experience of my life. It is one of the best place to do your camping. All of you who need to know more about can get in touch with me.

I will be glad to guide.