My objective of this journey was to visit at important historical places in Ibbagamuwa-Madagalla(මඩගල්ල) road. (B62 ) As usual I started the journey in the early morning. We came to Ibbagamuwa around 7.00am and got a bus towards Madagalla. Our first place was Arankale (අරන්කැලේ) ruins and got down in front of Archeology board. From there it was about 3km towards Arankale. Therefore we got a three-wheeler to travel.

Hence beginning of January we thought to travel to Polgahawela and Dedigama for a one day trip to visit few ancient temples and sites.
Starting at about 9.30am on the 7th of January 2013 we drove via Kandy road and turned off at Ambepussa to the Kurunegala Road up to Alawwa. At Walakumbura near the now famous train crossing with accidents you find the turn off road to Waduwawa.

Bunch of people at our office decided to climb Sripada off season back in 2007. I’ve involved in many hikes before, but I knew 12KM + is not an easy one. We arrived at Erathna day prior to our hike and stood at one of our colleague’s relatives place.

While I was at Buddama i got a wonderful opportunity to visit some ancient places which were hardly known by the public. So one day I got together with Nishantha and decided to visit few places. We arrived at the 2nd mile post junction on Siyambalanduwa-Ampara road and took the road towards the Degal hela mountain and after passing few km’s we reached the ancient unoccupied temple at the base of the mountain.

This was one of those journeys I did few months a back while intending to visit some unheard rarely visited places but yet archeologically significant. Actually most of these places are within 20Km’s to my resting place so on a day with a clear sky I departed towards Dambagalla and proceeded towards Mari Arawa. I had to get down at Meegahapitiya to pay a visit to the ancient temple of Meegahapitiya.

Another annual vacation, and as usual didn’t wanna miss out on visiting few cascading beauties in our paradise island. I had to wait for week as there were no significant rain fall around the hill country since I arrived. As soon as I heard there were few showers in Ramboda area called up couple of my close friends and packed up our bags and off we went.

Wilpattu has always been on our wish list, more so after reading Nihal de Silva’s The Road to Elephant Pass. Even though the park was reopened in 2009, we were not able to go that way due to many constraints. The wish finally became a reality only in December 2012.

Since I landed at Iginiyagala I have noted one abnormal dome shape rock close to Pallan oya and one day while I was wondering around the dam of Senanayake reservoir I asked a school boy about this rock and he said to me “ඕක උඩ නටබුන් තියෙනව සද්ධාතිස්ස රජ දවසෙ කරවපු” which lit a bulb in my brain matter and the next thing he said is that he has a friend who knows in and out about this rock.

As we had a long year end vacation we planned to go Horton Plains via Devil’s staircase-ohiya route. But due to bad weather condition we had to cancel that trip. But badly wanted a similar trip. While thinking about trip ideas I remembered the mountain in front of our home at Pundaluoya. So here we go.

This was a long waited leisure trip for us to get away from the tight schedules and relax in the cool climates enjoying beauty of the up country. Our selection this time was one sensational hotel, the Heritance Tea Factory to enjoy a comfortable stay with lovely meals within the beautiful landscapes and creations in the surrounding.

It was Friday the 16th March. We set of at around 4 a.m. from Moratuwa on a three day excursion to Galoya National Park. Shahan had booked the Mahadorowwa camp site on the Nilgala side of the park. We were a crew of 12 in three vehicles.

So finally I decided to tackle the rains, it was not a pleasant experience but my desire and the outcome made it pleasant at the end. On day one when I arrived at Welimada it was around 1pm and it was drizzling at that moment and I had to face a major obstacle which was a bus strike at that moment, somehow got in to a CTB and went towards lunuwatta.