Memorable Journey Towards the Heart of Mountains

Shogran is the Pakistan’s most beautiful hill station, situated in a green plateau in the Kaghan Valley northern Pakistan at a height of 2,362 metres (7,749ft) above sea level.

Shogran is located at 34 kilometres away from Balakot. I went there with my family, cousins and relatives on 8th September 2018. The transport we prefer was Toyota Hiace. We went straight from Islamabad to Abbottabad, Usmania resturant. We all had lunch over there. Food was delicious. Then after eating, we started our journey towards Shogran. The road from Islamabad to Abbottabad is good, but the road that takes you to the Shogran hills is not constructed well. The road from kawai to Shogran was okay at that time but not due to poor maintenance is not so good. We went from Kawai to Shogran in 30 mins. It is a beautiful place where the air is so fresh, the mountains are so close and seemed ready to welcome us. The must visit place in shogran is Forest Rest House. It has a big grassy lawn, with an outstanding view. Me and my relatives, we all sat there on the fresh green grass and enjoyed our snacks. All the uncles and boys played bat ball on the garden, while the women and the girls were enjoying their badminton racket match. There are some markets on the hill which provides you tea, coffee, chips and some of the shops has traditional things like cloths, bags, shawls etc. Hotels and motels are available on a very affordable price. One of the best hotels to stay were Arcadian Spruce woods, Pine Park Shogran, Cedarwood. We stayed for a night in my friend’s hotel over there. It has nice and big bedrooms. His farm was well maintained and clean. There was a lot of beautiful birds, ducks in the farm. We did bbq at night, and then we had some soup. The stars seem so close at night, the sky looks like it has diamonds in it. The wind was so cold at night that we did a bonfire on a side and enjoyed gossips. Mobile phone service is also available there.

The next morning, we woke up to a beautiful view, nice and shinny day. We did our breakfast. We enjoyed a lot while drinking tea with such an amazing weather. After breakfast we had to go back, as we went there for a day, but we all were sad to leave such a nice place where anyone can live for there whole life. We took a lot of photos in the morning for memories. And then we started our journey again back to Islamabad.