We continued on this towards Verugal, hardly any traffic, people or shops on this route. Good idea to have plenty of drinking water, juice, fresh fruits to quench your thirst because one can drink a lot. As it’s hot and humid in this part of no mans land. Sri Lanka has the natural beauty no matter, wherever you may travel and this Mutur – Verugal route is no exception. Continuing along the way enjoy the scenery, assortment of scrubland, marshes, forest patches, rocks, Palmyra groves, reservoir, streams and the lush green vegetation with herds of feeding cattle, displaying a unique beauty of its own. This road has been newly constructed and the old ferries have been replaced with new bridges, some stretches extending 5 to15 Km. had got badly affected due heavy rains in September, as the carpeting has not been laid, the top fill earth has washed away, leaving huge pot holes. That driving through these stretches avoiding the ruts and potholes needs patience and skill. After driving through a never ending nerve wrecking journey finally we reached Valachchenai for a well deserved lunch.

If I explain to you the very little I know about the devalaya, this place is considered very sacred by devotees of God Katharagama . They believe that the God’s present staying place is the ‘Maha Siyambalawa Devalaya’ (Kebaliththa). I’m too believe that without any doubt. There are so many ‘Haskam’ which I cannot explain here. People at Kotiyagala respect this place very strongly and they are even scared to deal with this place. So I listened to their word and prepared my self as per the customs which they told that we have to follow.

If you take the back roads rather than the coastal road, the environment is quite different. We were rather surprised to find such a lot of lovely wawes. When we passed Lenabatuwa wawe (between Akkurassa and Kamburupitiya) it was too late for photos but it seems a very very lovely place. There is a little guest house just on the side of the wawe which looked like a potential base. There was a board for the Lenabatuwa Bio Diversity Park and someone told us that walking in the forest is quite interesting. It certainly looked lovely.

According to the “Birds of Sri Lanka” by Prof. Sarath Kotagama, Mannar is one of the main entry points for migrant birds to the main land of Sri Lanka. The area facilitates lot of water holes which are rich of food for these birds. So only few of those birds that are not satisfied with those facilities only come inland, so Mannar is rich with bird life on migrant season mainly from September to May. Few of my friends who had been to Mannar recently had seen lot of bird life there. So we decide that it’s time to pay a visit to Mannar.

The journey beyond this we could witness the scars of war, huge stretches of Area marked with red tape indicating uncleared land mines,army camps strategically Placed. Our next stop was Kilinochchi, we toured the town and suburbs to explore ,I leave to the readers to their imagination what it would have been like just 17 Months ago.It was getting dark we headed to Jaffna, was around 9.00 we reached Our guest house.

This was also one of our dream hikes that we had to postpone several times because of the rain. But finally we had some fine weather and we decided to do it. But it was the starting day of a long weekend and the queues for the buses were miles long. We got into a Badulla bus after a one and a half hour wait in the queue. It was 2 am in the morning. After a four hour ride we reached Belihul Oya around 6 in the morning. Although we couldn’t take a good sleep previous night we were eager to start the hike. We had our breakfast there and took two three wheelers to reach the trail head.

We were heading Lulkandura / Loolecondera Estate, the first commercial tea plantation of Sri Lanka, which was located in a distance of 35km from Peradeniya. Just after the University premises, the climb was began. The road was bit narrow but had been maintained well. It was nice scenery of hilltops at Gampola area visible in our right hand side, especially the Govijana Seya of Ambuluwawa. The road was run through natural rain forests, pathana and pines lands.

We stopped at a night hotel somewhere near Nittambuwa as two of my friends were out of dinner and drove up to Dambulla without stopping. We re-fueled from Damdulla around 3.00 am and drove to Pallegama. We stopped in a night tea shop somewhere near Pallegama to have a cup of tea. We arrived at the Park Entrance at around 5.45 am and proceeded to the bungalow after completing the formalities at the entrance office.

Knuckles mountain range has been a paradise for me since the first time I visited there via Deanston in 2009. The breathtaking surroundings, strong cool winds and challenging hikes had been tempting me to visit there again and as a result I decided to visit Knuckles again in the following year from Illukkumbura side. The story of our unforgettable journey is as follows

We left around morning 6.00 from Dehiwala with Bopath Ella to be our 1st sighting in mind. We reached Kuruwita around 8.00 – 8.30 and from Kuruwita took a left turn and travelled about 3kms to a village called Agalwatta where the fall is located. It was interesting to see that the area surrounding the fall has changed a lot from my last visit for this fall in 1996. Then as per our agenda it was Doovili falls in Kalthota, so we made a move towards Balangoda. After passing Pelmadulla town we were lucky enough to spot Kirindi Ella in distance from the main road (although I have seen images of this waterfall had no idea where it is located exactly). So we have to come back towards Pelmadulla town and took a right turn in Kuttapitiya road.

Just after passing Kurunegala we turned left to reach Arankele Monastery. The road was not that smooth, but it was ok. There were places where the road was quite damaged due to heavy rains on the previous night. If not for a van or off-road vehicle, it would have been impossible to tackle those obstacles.

The Galgamuwa tusker whom many now call Parakrama, was the largest wild tusker in Sri Lanka.I first heard about this tusker in 2009 when my friend Namal said that he had a friend who went on foot and photographed this guy, and that he we like no elephant he has ever seen before. My heart started to race, and I immediately started looking around, trying to find contacts in that region. Tuskers have always been my obsession and to see and photograph such a majestic animal will be my life’s ultimate goal. During this period I was searching for another big tusker who visits Kaudulla once a year. But sadly I am yet to come across him.