As the place was visited by my fellow rollers on March’ 2008, which I came to know after completing the trip, so I am not giving the basic information for the readers. Its a 200 years old village where there are 34 temples adorned with terraccota. Archaeological Survey of India is restoring the temples one by one.
Riders and Beast : Bhaskar and Oyshee(as pillion), HH Karizma
I was supposed to pick up Oyshee from Andul at 6.30am, and as usual I was late. We started our journey around at 7.15 from Andul. We reached mighty NH6 at Alampur and headed towards Kolaghat which would be our 1st stop. The highway encouraged me to go over three digits as there were very few traffic at that time. So in no time we reached Kolaghat, as it was too early to stop we decided to go on and headed towards Kharagpur / Medinipur. There was a junction where the NH6 goes towards Jharkhand and NH60 meets up with it, we took the right turn to reach Medinipur. Around 10 am we had our breakfast at Medinipur. From here I had no idea how to reach Pathra, we asked some localites and to our surprise we encountered a man (proffessor of C.U) who directed us to that village. We had to cross two more villages before we could reach our destination. The sight of the green paddy field was soothing to our eyes, and the cool breeze made me feel sleepy. Oyshee was enjoying the ride throughly. She was busy capturing nature’s beauty through her lense. I maintained a moderate speed of 45-50k/hr and finally we reached Pathra. We were lucky enough to get a mesmerising view of river Kangsabati at one side and the ruins on the another side. We took a lot many snaps – posing here and there at the top, bottom, side, everywhere of the ruins. We were very happy to ride to such a peaceful place. But soon things changed. We met an aged person, I was taking his picture,when he started a very common topic(hope you can understand) and named some localites which compelled us to leave that place a bit early from schedule. Might be so that he was wrong, but who want to take chances?
The Pathra chapter was closed all of a sudden. It was around 12.30pm. . I kept on thinking if there was any other place that we could visit , yes.. I remember – Gopegarh.
It is the site of an old dilapidated fort of the Gope Kings on the bank of River Kansai amidst an eco park. There’s a watch tower for the tourists to witness the beauteous sunset on the banks of River Kansai. The eco park covered 174 hectars of land and was full of greenery. We headed towards this place after enquiring the local people. At around 1.30pm we reached the destination. Its much like our very own Botanical Garden with a narrow road covered with “Lal Mati” that leads to the ticket counter. the entry fee is 10 rupees per head . It is well maintained heritage site. We strolled through the jungle, climbed the top of the tower to have a bird’s eye view of Kangsabati. The scorching heat was unbearable and we decided to call for a lunch break., with cakes and biscuits.
Now we have to get back, I had to drop Oyshee at her relative’s place and come back to Kolkata. We started our return journey around 4pm. Took fag break enroute, and reached Kolaghat. .Around 6.30 pm Oyshee reached Mecheda and I took more one and half hour to reach my home. I was enjoying the night ride in a lone highway after a long tiring day. The feel of the entire trip was superb.
Will suggest others to go in groups now, coz the places there are becoming more unstable now-a-days. Better plan it after couple of months.
The round trip was 321kms.
Route ::
Kolkata > Kolaghat > Medinipur > Pathra > Gopegarh > Medinipur > Kolaghat > Kolkata
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