I have a dream to visit Uda-Maliboda, ඇලි හත (Seven Waterfalls) for quite a long time. Finally with some of my friends we decided to do it in beginning of the year 2012. Our objective is to visit all the seven waterfalls without a guide and also explore the area. In the early morning at 5.00 AM we started the journey from Kiribathgoda by hired van. At around 9.30 AM we reached Uda-Maliboda. From there we had our breakfast and started the hike near the Naya Ganga.

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.

Leaving park office we drove along the Yala main road to paranaganthota (a.k.a Parana Thotupola) where we crossed Menik River and entered Block 2. Our camp site was “Nuga Sevana”, one of the newer camp sites established on the bank of the river. It was only a couple hundred meters away from Paranaganthota (පරන ගං තොට).

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.

It was one of my dream journeys which I had waited for a long time to accomplished. Finally that day came.We departure from colombo on 4th of September by 12.45AM Ampara bus to go to the ancient Memure village.We arrived Hunnasgiriya at about 5.30 AM and get breakfast from there. We went to Loolwatta by a van which leaves at 8.00 AM from Hunnasgiriya. After that, there was no public transport vehicle on that road until 1.30 PM. After scenic drive along the Hunnasgiriya-Loolwatta road we came to the destination at about 9.00AM.From there we started our long walk towards Meemure.

We planned the trip initially to the August school vacation but due to the National Elephant Senses which was on the way we had to reschedule the trip to September. All were enthusiastic on the trip and final number on for the trip was 10 with 3 teenagers, 2 youths and 5 adults. The campsite was booked in advanced and officers were helpful to provide us a campsite despite their strike. Cab service van was booked which was familiar due to the past experiences with the driver/owner of that van.

There was a hike to the Kahathaaththa Hela rock at Nilgala. During the time of King Dutugemunu, there had been a monastery on this rock. The ruins were to be seen. We also, saw the Nilgala aniket where the waters of Galoya gets transferred to help paddy cultivation. A few members in the group went bird watching from Kossapola Campsite one morning.

We were gathered into Colombo private bus stand on Friday night @ about 10.15pm to catch 11.45Pm Mahiyangana bus. Since it was a long weekend huge crowd was there. But we were lucky enough to get seats in 10.45 Bibila bus which was came unexpectedly late. Therefore it is better if you can reserve seats in advanced if you plan to go by Bus. We get off at the Gurulupotha rest house at about 5 am. There is a water stream, which is a branch of a Hasalaka oya is flow across Mahiyanganaya road. We had ‘Roti’ for the breakfast from a small hotel at Gurulupotha

The story is that the God Kataragama had met his future wife Walli amma on a rainy day near a tamarind tree at this place which is also called Siyambalawa devalaya (මහ සියඹලාව දේවාලය).We were asked to be refrained from consuming all kinds of meat and alcohol for one week before the date and we bought fruits and other stuff which are needed for the pujawa (පූජාව) the day before.Mohan been a veteran organized a couple of cooks with all the dry rations needed.

The bus terminated at Pamunupura junction. Then we have to turn left and continue the journey by foot. The sight of Yahangala too away our tiredness all the time. It brought ice cool to our eyes. We stopped briefly at a point where a small water stream crosses the road and fall over cliff on the other side of the road. After 15 mins we restarted the journey. It was a heavy climb thereafter and after 200m we reached the Grama niladari office of the village. It was closed and we got some more rest there. The concreted road ended there and a foot path began.

Seven waterfalls (ඇලි හත) is a collection of seven waterfalls at the upstream of Seethawaka ganga (tributary is called Naya ganga). Even though the access route is from Deraniyagala, seven falls belongs to Nuwaraeliya district and also all seven falls are inside the peak wilderness sanctuary. This exciting adventure will take you out of busy homosapiens to calm and cool virgin green forest with pure water streams. This story begins by year 1992, when I was around 10 years old I could barely remember one of my uncles told a story about hiking “Eli hatha” which was an epic adventurous tour with full of fear, courage and excitement

With the reopening of the Kumana national park early this year it had been on our priority list for quite some time and finally we managed to make that dream come true. The camp sites were booked more than three months in advance as there is no other accommodation south of Arugam Bay. Wildlife department is trying to rebuild the destroyed circuit bungalows and hopefully we will get to use them before long.