With that we remembered that there was a news article in Defence.lk that SL Navy has started Whale & Dolphin watching cruises in Galle and Trincomalee recently. I have been to Trincomalee in 2003 during the peace talks and went to Muttur by ferry (named Seruwila 2). It was about one hour journey across the harbor and there were many things to visit. So we decided to get this arranged

We started our journey on 11th December around 5.00pm from Colombo. First day our destination was Laxapana Circuit Bungalow and we reached there by 11.00 pm with several stops in between; several security checkups were there since we were entering in to a high security zone and War was at peak during that time.

This year annual office trip was planned to Sigiriya in November. Luckily it was the season for ballooning. When I mentioned the possibility of hot air ballooning to the trip organizers they managed to negotiate a bulk discount of 50% with one of the operator called Air Magic. It was still expensive but we thought “worth doing” at LKR 9000 per person!

We started journey from Gampaha at 3.30 a. m. Very less traffic on the way and we could reach Riverston at 6.45. We were the first to be there for the day. We left Reversturn around 9.30 am and this is on our way to Pitawala pathana. Manigala behind the scene. This is around 5 Km away from the Hittipola Road. The road was very bad condition and difficult manage with the car. We had to stop the car and walk last 2 km.

On the Friday eve, after office we started our journey from Battaramulla, typically very punctually, 2 hours behind our schedule. We stayed at a private place in Kandy on that night. Next day we wanted to leave Kandy as early as possible and again as usual we were way behind our schedule. After having breakfast from a friend’s place in Rattota, we headed towards Riverston. Our first stop was at the small yet scenic “Bambarakiri Ella” falls. It is just a few hundred meters walk from the main road to the water fall.

This trip was done some time back in 2009, but still I cherish the memorable experience of this fantastic place. The other reason which prompted me to write this report is to clear the erroneous doubts among the members of this forum about the ‘bookings getting cancelled’. You can reserve this place in advance but they accept money and confirm your reservation only two weeks before the arrival date. Once you pay, your booking is confirmed and there is very rare chance of getting it cancelled.

The first hike of the day was to Lanka Ella falls. While at first we were contemplating skipping this, Mrs. Mayakaduwa strongly recommended that we do this hike and it’s a decision that we did not regret. The hike at first began through a pine forest and this was the trickiest part since the ground was very slippery.

My very first visit to Yala was in July 2010. “Armed” with my new Canon 100-400 we headed there with the hope of capturing a good shot or two of the elusive Sri Lankan Leopard. But much, much to our dismay, even after two rounds, we failed to catch even a glimpse of a Leopard! Dusty, tired and so disappointed, we headed back to Colombo.

We( 5 of us) started at 2.15 am on the 4th of November from Colombo and reached Yala office at 5.45 am. We were joined by 5 others who had come the previous day from Kandy and had stayed in Thissa.The group consisted of 3 families and 2 others who opted to leave the families behind. Buthuwa was booked for the 1st day and Ondaatje for the 2 nd night.Our tracker as usual was Shalika( t/p: 0776808666 )and we went in at 6.10 as the office opens at 6 these days.

We were planning to start our trip at 12.00Noon from Colombo. Due to some unavoidable situations it was delayed for 2 hours and finally we left Colombo by 2.00PM. We took the low-level road and unfortunately there was heavy traffic at Orugodawaththa since construction of the flyover was taking place and we had to wait almost 1 hour there. After so many delays we were able to come to Rathnapura by 6.30 PM and still had a lot of things to be bought from Cargills. By the time we started the journey again we knew that we won’t have time to cook our dinner and decided to buy dinner from Balangoda town.

We started our journey at about 9 pm from Colombo with five members and headed directly to kurunegala to accompany with the other two. We spend the night at kurunegala and headed towards puttalm early morning, from this point onwards our crew was 7 in Hilux Vigo cab and a motor car. Road condition is excellent we only spend 45 minutes to travel 87 Kms. At puttalam we had our breakfast and drive towards Willpattu on A12 Puttalam Anuradhapura road.

Before the Sun wake up, we were busy in examination on 1:50,000 maps, to ascertain how & why we loss our goal during the last exploration. After such a hard trekking (not less than 13+3 =16km on foot) in the previous day, the crew was still aggressive to re-do the hike & not known the meaning of giving up. Having an idea on the road (Jeep track) network at the tea estates in and around Namunukula range, we decided to follow the path of the previous day as much as possible with our jeep & reach the village where we suspended our exploration last day.