If you take the back roads rather than the coastal road, the environment is quite different. We were rather surprised to find such a lot of lovely wawes. When we passed Lenabatuwa wawe (between Akkurassa and Kamburupitiya) it was too late for photos but it seems a very very lovely place. There is a little guest house just on the side of the wawe which looked like a potential base. There was a board for the Lenabatuwa Bio Diversity Park and someone told us that walking in the forest is quite interesting. It certainly looked lovely.

According to the “Birds of Sri Lanka” by Prof. Sarath Kotagama, Mannar is one of the main entry points for migrant birds to the main land of Sri Lanka. The area facilitates lot of water holes which are rich of food for these birds. So only few of those birds that are not satisfied with those facilities only come inland, so Mannar is rich with bird life on migrant season mainly from September to May. Few of my friends who had been to Mannar recently had seen lot of bird life there. So we decide that it’s time to pay a visit to Mannar.

This was also one of our dream hikes that we had to postpone several times because of the rain. But finally we had some fine weather and we decided to do it. But it was the starting day of a long weekend and the queues for the buses were miles long. We got into a Badulla bus after a one and a half hour wait in the queue. It was 2 am in the morning. After a four hour ride we reached Belihul Oya around 6 in the morning. Although we couldn’t take a good sleep previous night we were eager to start the hike. We had our breakfast there and took two three wheelers to reach the trail head.

We left around morning 6.00 from Dehiwala with Bopath Ella to be our 1st sighting in mind. We reached Kuruwita around 8.00 – 8.30 and from Kuruwita took a left turn and travelled about 3kms to a village called Agalwatta where the fall is located. It was interesting to see that the area surrounding the fall has changed a lot from my last visit for this fall in 1996. Then as per our agenda it was Doovili falls in Kalthota, so we made a move towards Balangoda. After passing Pelmadulla town we were lucky enough to spot Kirindi Ella in distance from the main road (although I have seen images of this waterfall had no idea where it is located exactly). So we have to come back towards Pelmadulla town and took a right turn in Kuttapitiya road.

Just after passing Kurunegala we turned left to reach Arankele Monastery. The road was not that smooth, but it was ok. There were places where the road was quite damaged due to heavy rains on the previous night. If not for a van or off-road vehicle, it would have been impossible to tackle those obstacles.

The Galgamuwa tusker whom many now call Parakrama, was the largest wild tusker in Sri Lanka.I first heard about this tusker in 2009 when my friend Namal said that he had a friend who went on foot and photographed this guy, and that he we like no elephant he has ever seen before. My heart started to race, and I immediately started looking around, trying to find contacts in that region. Tuskers have always been my obsession and to see and photograph such a majestic animal will be my life’s ultimate goal. During this period I was searching for another big tusker who visits Kaudulla once a year. But sadly I am yet to come across him.

We left for Kaudulla national park for a Elephant watching safari and reached the park around 3.00. The park entrance was well maintained and there were some peddle boats which the visitors can hire and have a ride in the lake. But unfortunately we had no time. Then we started our safari. The driver took us straight to a place where he was informed that there was a number of elephants on that day. That was a herd of elephants with about 100-120 elephants. That was a stunning view. We enjoyed those 2 hours of our lives to the max

e were planning to do this trail for some time but we had to postpone it several times because of the continuous rain. Finally we thought of doing this on 1st of January as it’s a nice way to start the New Year. We took the Podi Menike night mail train from Colombo Fort on 31st night and reached Ohiya on the following morning. We started our hike from Ohiya at 6.30 am. And soon we witnessed some breathtaking views when the sun light came though the forests as beams. It’s really difficult to describe the beauty of these wonderful scenes.

The north-east monsoon was being highly uncooperative. With no consideration whatsoever of our holiday plans, it started battering our planned destinations – the ancient capitals of the North Central – with unusual volumes of rain, forcing us to cancel and rethink our family trip. Hoping for better weather and determined to go somewhere before the holidays ended, we decided to head down south. These are highlights of our three-day trip to yet another fascinating part of beautiful Sri Lanka.

We planned this trip to visited Victoria, Randenigala, Loggal Oya and Sorabora Wewa dams, Mahiyanganaya, Nagadeepa, Muthiyangana, Bogoda and Buduruwagala temples, and Dunhinda, Rawana Ella, Diyaluma, Bambarakanda and Kirindi Ella waterfalls. We started form Kandana at about 4.30 in the morning. The crew was three in a car. I was driving the car. We took about 25lts of water with all other belongings

School holidays! Its trip time once again. We were getting back home to Bandarawela from Colombo….. a trip that we had done many, many, many times before. But, this time my father and mother suggested that we visit all the interesting places along the route so that I could write a Trip Report on the journey

We started our journey at about 5.30 A.M on 3 rd December from Colombo. Our crew consists of 10. (6 adults of between 45-55 and 4 children between 14-23.) Our first stop was at Kuruwita for our breakfast. After the breakfast we drove through Rathnapura, palmadulla and turned right to A 18 road and again turned off At Madampe and went through Rakwana, Sooriyakanda and Kolonna to see the Maduwanwela walawwa. During these days they have been commencing the restoration work of the old building.