Wadeshwar Waterfalls

In monsoon the whole of Maharashtra goes beneath a carpet of green – the trees turn into shiny green, the earth moist, the air fresh and the weather mystic. The hills start to house numerous waterfalls. The silvery water running through the green background and falling on the ground with noise and full force – it is a sight to behold for the nature lovers. People like us who live within the concrete jungle for 5 days at a stretch always try to break free whenver there is a single opportunity to experience the nature at its purest form.

Wadeshwar waterfalls is certainly not as famous as the more renowned ones in Maharashtra – Lingamala Waterfalls (Mahabaleshwar), Kune Falls (Khandala), Lonavala Waterfalls (Lonavala), Randha Falls (Bhandardara) etc to name a few – yet it offers an unspoken beauty of its own. These are only monsoon waterfalls, in winter and summer the falls get completely dried up.

One Saturday afternoon we set off for a short drive to the Wadeshwar waterfalls situated near the Takve/Wadeshwar village – in between Kamshet and Vadgaon.

How to go:

To reach to these waterfalls you need to take the old Mumbai-Pune Highway (NH4) and go towards Kamshet. In between you will cross Dehuroad (watch out for heavy traffic here), Talegaon and then Vadgaon.

Once you cross Vadgaon you have to keep your eyes open for a small green board pointing towards right (after a few kms from the toll plaza), marked as Kanhe. This is Kanhe Phata. This is around 50 Kms from where we stay (Kharadi).

Once you reach the Kanhe crossing, you have to take a right – this is a narrow road and called as ‘Takve – Wadeshwar Road’. The google map does not show this road properly and also you can not locate the Wadeshwar waterfalls through google maps. Just after taking the right, you will need to cross a railway crossing – this is the Kanhe rail crossing, from this point you can see the Kanhe railway station to your left (and to your right on the return journey). Through this road you have to drive around 15 Kms more to reach towards the Wadeshwar waterfalls.

Here is the map of the road direction:

View Larger Map

One caution here is that this road is really not in a good shape – there are too many potholes and the road itself is very narrow towards the end and it is very difficult to take a U-turn for a 4 wheeler. If you have a bike, this journey will suit you best. But we have seen buses and trucks going through this road. There are some jeeps after you cross the railway crossing, may be they can take you to the destination.

After a laborious 15 Km drive we finally reached towards the destination. We crossed a few villages through these extremely narrow roads. The villages seemed to be at a standstill with time.

The scenic beauties were well enough to forget us the painful drive, though I could not enjoy as I wished as I had to keep the eyes open to watch the road.

There are 3-4 waterfalls back to back, but there are a couple of big ones. One is a 3 tiered and another is a 2 tiered fall.

We went very close to the biggest one to get a quick glance. The water was falling down from a steep cliff with a roar. There were mists generated from the tiniest water particles. The atmosphere was calm – one can only hear the chattering of the birds and the noise of the falls.

We expected a bit commercialization as we have seen in other tourist places, but there is absolutely nothing around the waterfalls which gives the places a rather isolated ambience. As there was nothing else to do and it started raining already, we just spent a half of an hour there and turned ourselves towards the Ghorwadeshwar Caves on the way.

Some more snaps taken from the car:

The place is recommendable for a half day picnic in a big group.

Warnings:

1. There are absolutely no eateries around so please carry your own food and drinks (including water) in case need be.
2. There are no place to stay to it is not advisable to plan a overnight stay – in case you have to, please stay in Lonavala.
3. Road is pretty bad, so be careful while driving.
4. Roads are extremely narrow.