After completing the three most traveled trails (Hatton-Nallathanni, Rathnapura-Palabaddhala and Kuruwita-Erathna) to SriPada my focus shifted towards the lesser known ones. The Uda-Maliboda trail from Deraniyagala was on the top of that list. I was looking out for more details on this trail and that is when the topic came in to discussion on the forum in the threads – Trail to Sri Pada from Uda Maliboda, Deraniyagala and Trail to sri pada to udamaliboda – Thanks to the discussions there I got all the information required and was wating to find some time to do the walk.

Before 6.00 am we left Gampaha. Hemantha, coming from Ehetuwewa, a small town at the northern boundary of the Kurunegala Distict, had asked to join with us at Ibbagamuwa junction. However we had to wait more than 1 hour for Hemantha. So we had time enough to have a visit & rest at the famous Bathalegoda tank. On our way we met the young wild elephant who used to rob foods form vehicles passing through, at the Habarana jungle.

At around 7.30 – 8.00 am we stopped at a small roadside hut at “Ranna” for breakfast. (We had newly made hoppers & bananas, pancake and poll-roti and plain tea) Then we proceed to Tissa market to purchase the vegetables as all other provisions were purchased from Colombo. (We got fresh village vegetables from tissa) At around 11.00 am we came to Palatupana Office (Yala Entrance) and took about 30mts to get our permit confirmed and they provide us with a Tracker (Dimuthu)

We were due to travel on the Kurunagala – Puttlam road with some time to spare. So I looked up a couple of books for some diversions and came up with two interesting sounding places – Tonigala Inscription and Paramakanda Viharaya – in සිරි ලක අැසු දුටු තැන්. We never made it to Tonigala (one of the largest inscriptions in SL) as we were so taken up with what we found in Paramakanda. Turn off a few km past Anamaduwa by the sign board for Paramakanda Purana Viharaya. Driving through very flat land you suddenly see this huge rock outcrop ahead.

To reach falls, we travelled about 4kms along Elpitiya-Kahaduwa road and came to Pituwala village. Before the village we had to turn left from the main road. At that junction there was a yellow color name board of “Diwankara lena Hermitage”. If you come by bus you have to get in to Elpitiya- Kahaduwa bus and get down at the this junction. Road conditions are very good. Still the bus service is not good. There was only one bus for two hours.

Few of my friends decided to go on a trip to Badulla by train, in December 2008. We had to travel by the night mail train because we were not enough lucky to reserve tickets for an early one. We got into the train at Veyangoda station at about 9.15 pm on 19/12/2008.
It was 6.00 am the following day when we reached Pattipola which was the most elevated railway station from the sea level, in Sri Lanka.

We started our journey from Katubedda at about 11.30 in the night. The crew was six. We came Colombo fort at 12.30 am from bus. Because of four day vacation there were huge crowd in the Kandy busses. We found group of boys and girls who go Knuckles range also. We set with them and hired a van to go Matale. At 3.30 am we came from Colombo. At 7.30 am we arrived to Matale. We got the Matale -> Riverston -> Illukkmbura -> Pallegama -> Narangamuwa CTB bus and came to Rathninda.(If u want Matale CTB depot no: 0662222281)

It was around 6AM when we left Colombo with UdaWalawe national park being our destination. The crew consisted of me and my wife, along with three other close friends from our uni days. We loaded up the camping gear and other paraphernalia to the back of the pick up and I took the wheels for the first part of the journey.
The drive upto Pambahinna was rather uneventful with three stops for breakfast at Awissawella, fuel at Rathnapura and change of the spare tyre at Pelmadulla.

Started from Colombo fort at 6.00 a.m. but got into a Kandy bus around 8.30 a.m. as it was the start of the ‘Wesak weekend ’. From Kandy to Wattegama around 1 hour in the bus and the last bus from Wattegama to Bambarella at 7.15 p.m.
There are enough buses on normal days to Bambarella from Wattegama. Even from Kandy there are few. Total distance from Kandy to Bambarella – 38km.

Arrived at the Mirissa harbour by 6.20am since we were to leave by 7am. Was at sea for around 40 minutes when the guide spotted whales. Got to see 3 whales(for the entire trip….hmph) of which only 1 posed for the camera. Disappointed with the lack of show put on by the whales for us we were circling around at sea for another good 2-21/2 hrs hoping to see some more when we came across a school of dolphins that put on a terrific performance cheering the whole group up after a disappointing morning……Should say that the dolphins made up for it..

Our van moved slowly since the road was narrow and hilly. The condition of the road was un-expectably good. (It seemed to be repaired recently). The sky was covered with crowns of wet zoned trees. We had moved more than 3km. along a by road starting from Ginigathhena. In the next moment, we were free from the shades of trees and came to an open area surrounded by a tea plantation. Then we notice a silver string laying on black dress in a distance. That was the Aberdeen fall; the most beautiful place in the Kehelgamuwa River

I and three of my friends decided to attend the Somawathi religious function on 8th May. Along with that we decided to go to Aukana and the ancient city of Polonnaruwa. So we took off at 2.00 a.m. on 7th May from Kiribathgoda. We used a Maruti 800 as our transportation medium because of its fuel economy.

Around 5.00 a.m. we took a left turn from Mirisgoni Oya junction and headed to our first place of interest.