Khanpur dam is a beautiful dam constructed over River Haro, you can catch it going to wards Abbottabad. The lake is almost 50kms away from Islamabad. It takes around 2 hours to get there from Islamabad. It hosts a spring carnival every year that attracts many tourists from within and outside Pakistan. It is an ideal place for a day-trip.
The lake offers activities like fishing, swimming, boat-ride to an island from where one can do cliff-diving, rock climbing and many other.
There are services and tourists agencies, that can accommodate you with everything from pickups to drop offs, with dinner on rafts.
The experience depends in what season you go in. In summers when you go for cliff jumping you to get to jump from the high points, getting a more thrilling experience. In the winters, those points are closed as the water levels falls. However, in the winters you get a lot of variety of fish to eat. In addition, if you are an enthusiast you can fish there as well.
Similarly, if you want to go for jet skis go in summers as in winter you won’t be allowed to go by yourself, as the water level falls you won’t know how to navigate to through the dam, there are some high and low points the jet skis can be damaged and it’s also dangerous for you. In the summers that is not the case, you can take the jet skis where you want you do not get ubered around. So pick your battles.
Having heard about all the great experiences Khanpur dam offers, we decided to go there as well. This time there were a lot more of us than 5, so we booked a coaster from Islamabad and headed towards Khanpur. We crossed Taxila on the way and it took us almost 2 hours to get to the lake. It was around noon when we got there. It was a hot sunny day. As soon as we got off the coaster, we headed to the bank to hire a boat. It cost us 300 rupees per head and the price included travelling to and from the island where cliff diving is done.
Cliff diving was a really refreshing experience. You climb to the top of a cliff and jump into the water. Be sure to wear a life jacket unless you are a good swimmer. It was almost 4pm when we got back to shore. We were all super hungry, so we decided to try out the lake-side fish restaurants. We headed back towards Islamabad around 5 and were in the city before nightfall. All in all, Khanpur is a great place to escape the city and beat the heat during summers, especially if you only have one day.
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