The 60-meter Miyunu Ella waterfall is one of the two large waterfalls lying in the Kukulugala Forest (KF) is situated within the Western boundary of the Ratnapura district, Sabaragamuwa Province; and is located 15 km away from Bulathsinhala town. This forest ecosystem, which covers an area of 6000 acres within the Ayagama secretariat division, can be categorized as a low land evergreen rain forest. The dominant tree species are Dipterocarpus sp., Mesua sp., Doona sp., Schumacheria castaneifolia, Artocarpus Nobilis, Calophyllum inophyllum, Mangifera zeylanica, Humboldtia laurifolia, Oncosperma fasciculatum and Canarium zeylanicum species. Kukulugala mountain, also known as “Horanae Kanda (හොරණෑ කන්ද)” in Sinhala, is 705m above sea level.

Again here , it is me with another trip report . In this story again Aluva (Aluvihare) , my friend plays the major role. Aluva and me always needed to hike Thunhisgala down since we covered beautiful Kotaganga Cascades and Alugal-Lena during our last visit to knuckles mountain range.

Since my last hike in knuckles range , I was unable go anywhere else for three months. But I was searching a lot about nice places to visit. Due to the rainy season it was impossible to do a good hike.

There are many mountains situated around the Kurunegala – Dambulla main road and I’m still unable to climb most of them due to the lack of free time and availability. However, I had to visit one of my office friend’s function and I wanted to go there on my motorbike. Since I had enough time to explore the beauties around the road I used that time to explore some mountains over the route and I visited those areas to grab details for future hikes with my friends.

Roaming around Ingiriya after monsoon rain was a fruitful journey as I was able to find number of cascades. This a summary of waterfalls situated around Ingiriya.

හොරණ නගරයට ඉහළින් පවතින ඇල්ලේ කන්ද ගැන බොහෝ දෙනෙක් දනී. නමුත් එහි ඇති වටිනාකම් ගැන බොහෝ දනා නොදනී. අප අදටත් ඇල්ලේ කන්දේ සැගවී ඇති හිරඤ්ඤමළය සොයා යමු. රයිගම් කෝරළයට අයත් භූමිය කඩවත් පොතට අනුව අතීතයේ බෙදී පැවතියේ හිරඤ්ඤමළයට සහ පානබුන්න දනව්වටය. මහා පරාක්රුමබාහු රජ සමයේ එතුමාගේ නිලධාරියෙකු වන අලකේෂ්වරාභිදාන අලගක්නෝණාර නම් ඇමතියෙකු විසින් මෙම සම්පූර්ණ හිරඤ්ඤමළයත්, පානබුන්න දනව්වේ කොටසකුත් එක්කර රයිගම් රාජධානියට පදනම දැමීය.

මේ වන විට මුහුණුපොත තුළ ප්‍රබල වශයෙන් ජනප්‍රිය ස්ථානයක් බවට පත්ව ඇති සංචාරක ඉසව්වක් වන බලංගොඩ හුණුගල් පොකුණු පද්ධතිය සොයා පසුගිය දිනක අප ගොඩවැදුණේ හුණුගල් සහ හිරිලඹ පිළිබඳ එම ප්‍රදේශයෙන් තවත් විස්තර සොයාගනු පිණිසය. තවද පාරිසරික වැදගත්කමින් යුතු මෙවැනි ඉසව් නිසි වැඩපිළිවෙළක් යටතේ උචිත ලෙස සමාජගතවීමේ අවශ්‍යතාව වගේම මෙවැනි සුන්දර ඉසව් සංචාරක සන්ධිස්ථාන වශයෙන් නියාමනයන් තුළ පවත්වාගෙන යාමේ වැදගත්කම පිළිබඳවද අපි වැඩිදුරටත් සොයා බැලුවෙමු. 

We had a relaxing drive to the southern province as we received an invitation from our friend to visit his village as well as we need to have a drive to Matara via the Southern Expressway. Since my other members didn’t see Andahelena Fall I marked it at the first thing on our trip. I visited Andahelena Falls in May, 2013 while on a Funeral of an office mate’s cousin. However, we were able to visit Madol Duwa, Martin Wickremasinghe House, and the Museum and finally stopped at Dondra Light House which is closed to that friend’s home.

Gammaduwa is a famous destination in the northern side of the Knuckles forest reserve. I had an opportunity to visit Gammaduwa with Nirosh’s office crew as they have direct access to the transmission towers for business purposes. Karagahatenna is the nearest peak of Gammaduwa and both peaks are reserved for telecommunication transmission towers, hence entering the premises is not open to the public.

Ballabandigala (බල්ලාබැඳිගල ) / Bellanbandigala (බෙල්ලන්බැඳිගල) is a 1935m height beautiful destination in peak wilderness and it belongs to the Nallathanniya route as it’s neighbor is Yaka Andu Gala (යකා ඇඩූ ගල ) and the waterfall. I have planned this hike since March 2018 but was not able to make it realize due to some issues. Even though we planned this hike in January 2019 but due to a very urgent matter we had to postpone this hike at the last moment. Finally, I had to make this hike realize with Sajith and Migara on a weekend in October.

We have visited some waterfalls at Avissawella in February 2018 but we didn’t have time to visit two more falls and the Seethawaka garden. Hence I and Nirosh planned this day trip to cover those places and it was successful since we had enough time to see them.

We had a one day tour to see the Richmond Castle and then Thudugala fall which was famous at that time.  Richmond castle is an amazing place with beautiful architecture. It is also close to the Kalu river and it owns a huge land area as this was the remains of a Sri Lankan history. After we spend 2-3 hours over there, we left for Thudugala fall and it is not so far from this destination. We reached Thudugala Ella within an hour and spent a few hours and finally had a bath and left in the evening.