Our visit to Saputara, a wonderful weekend destination
Looking for some weekend destination near Nasik, Surat or Mumbai, come and read this article narrating the beauty of Saputara - a small hill station lying on the border of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Saputara is a lakeside getaway popular for boating and ropeway activities.
It was November 2015. After Diwali we had 2 days of holiday in our hands. We planned to visit Saputara, a hill station about 80 kms from our place Nasik. It was a one day trip. The day after Diwali, we left at 10 am. We were travelling by car and reached our destination at 12:30 pm. It was 2.5 hours of journey including our halt in between for some tea and snacks.An overview of Saputara
Saputara is a small hill station lying on the border of Maharashtra and Gujarat; this is a part of the district Dang in Gujarat state. Tourists looking for weekend destination flock here to enjoy the serene beauty of it. Mostly the tourists from Mumbai, Nasik and Surat visit here to spend their valuable time with beautiful Saputara lake amid hills and greenery spread around. This can also be considered as a picnic spot and you will love to visit this place with your family. As it is a small hill station, all the visiting points are situated very close to each other. It does not require a lot of time to be spent in travelling; therefore one can explore whole Saputara within a day.
Saputara is packed with many hotels and resorts near the center of attraction Saputara lake. Best time to visit this amazing place is monsoon. It offers a fantastic view in rainy season. It has various places / points to explore. Mainly it is famous for boating, ropeway and sunset point. We spent our whole day discovering the attractions in Saputara. Let's take one by one. Saputara Lake
We parked our vehicle in the parking available for tourists in front of Lake and went for boating. This is one of the main tourists attractions in Saputara. This lake is the only source of water for the whole Saputara. Lake water is clean and well maintained. It looks beautiful surrounded by hills and green trees.
Several boats are available to serve tourists. There are only two types of boats, one is row type and another is pedal type. We chose pedal type.
Charges for boating are as below -
Pedal boat- Rs. 35 per seat for 30 minutes
For 4 seater boat - Rs. 140
For 5 seater boat - Rs. 175
For 6 seater boat - Rs. 210
Row boat- Rs. 25 per seat for half round (a person will be allotted for rowing)
Tourists are allowed to take away boat for half an hour. Life jacket provided for safety though many do not ask for it. Although we enjoyed boating in afternoon, suggest to do it in the evening time. It will be more pleasant experience. 
Several small vendors available with their stalls of eatable things and toys. Various amusement facilities for kids also provided next to boating house but it is not so attractive or interesting. It remains unoccupied most of the time.Honey bee center
After experiencing boating, we went to the honey bee center which is famous for pure honey availability. It is a small garden area where various boxes are fixed under roof facilitating bees to collect honey. Here you will be charged Rs. 130 for a bottle of 300 gms of pure honey.
Now it was lunch time after visiting honey bee center. There are many good hotels / resorts / restaurants in the vicinity of Lake. First we went to the Lake view hotel. This is one of the best hotels in Saputara as per my sources. But we didn't have lunch there due to crowd of visitors already waiting for their turn. We left it and selected Swad resort for our lunch. We entered their restaurant offering Gujarati thali. The taste of food was not that good but it was okay. After lunch we presumed our journey to explore Saputara. Our next destination was Rose Garden.Rose Garden
This is a small garden where different types of rose plants are grown. Several plants other than rose also grown in the garden. You won't discover variety of roses here. I did not find it very interesting and I suggest you skip this place unless you have a lot of free time. This garden needs maintenance too.
Echo point
This is the place where you can hear echo of your voice. Now this is just a name of point, not many people visit here. However I visited there and found it a peaceful spot. It needs a lot of maintenance. We were able to locate it with the help of local persons. Board meant for this point is printed in Gujarati language only.
Saputara Museum
This is a tribal museum showcasing tribal lifestyle or cultural, ornaments, soil utensils, equipments used in agriculture, stuffed birds, musical instruments and much more. District Dang is mostly occupied by tribal population and this museum unveils their lifestyle and illustrates the things they do or follow. It is a two storey building encompassing everything concerned with tribal cultural. It is an interesting spot to visit. Entry fee for visitors is minor, just Rs. 5 per person.
Aquarium
It is a very small aquarium situated next to the Museum. It is provided with few fish tanks containing different types of fish of various countries. It is not very popular part of Saputara but it exists in the list of visiting places. Entry fee is Rs. 7 per person.
Ropeway house
Ropeway is one of the best tourists attractions in Saputara. A large number of tourists flock here to gain this wonderful experience of ropeway. It is a ride across valley and sunset point. Ropeway starts from a valley, passes above Saputara lake and returns from sunset point. Charges are very reasonable, it costs only Rs. 62 per person. We witnessed a long queue of tourists and dropped the idea of ropeway, rather we decided to explore the table land close to the ropeway house.
Table land
It offers various activities like horse riding, camel riding, biking and amusement facilities for kids. Eatable things also available. I preferred biking. Whole Saputara view can be seen from here. It's wonderful to examine the beauty of Saputara from the table land.
It was 5:15 pm in the evening. Sunset time was 6:00 pm. We left table land and ran for sunset point. Like earlier we missed the major attraction of Saputara- ropeway, we didn't want to miss it and we were curious to witness the interesting scenario of sunset.Sunset Point
Sunset point is the top of hill where you can enjoy the view of sunset in the evening. Vehicles other than two wheeler are not allowed at this point. We parked our car at the base and continued our journey by foot. It needs 1.5 km of walking to reach the peak of sunset point. Two-three stalls were present there offering tea, cold drinks and packed snacks item.
Exactly at 6:00 pm sunset occurred. The moment of sunset runs very fast. This was the first time I witnessed sunset and it was a good experience. It's worth watching. Here you will love to sit, watch scenic beauty of Saputara and spend your valuable time. 
After the excursion to sunset point, we returned back to our home. Overall it was a good day with Saputara.
I made a recent visit to Saputara last month. It's a nice Picnic place to visit. Mountains, Lake, Gardens, Museum, waterfall, viewpoint are main attractions, but there are some worth watching places also.