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.

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.

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.

There was nearly 45 minutes drive from Ruwanwella to Bulathkohupitiya. Bulathkohupitiya was a small town at an elevation of 130 ft from MSL, located in between Kegalle & Karawanella. This colonial type town was margined by a stream known as Ritigaha-oya, a tributary of Kelani River. It was started from the ranges of Dolosbage, located within a distance of 20 km from Bulathkohupitiya. On the other hand, the elevation rose dramatically from 140ft to 3000ft within a distance nearly 14km.

Total distance of the boat tour was around 14 Km and it took 2 hrs. We started from Hamilton canal and the canal was full of water monitors. We were fortunate to see a young crocodile. We reached to Negombo lagoon within 20 minutes. Then we entered to Dandugam oya through boarder of the Muthurajawela marsh. There we saw lot of fishing boats (canoes) with fishing nets.

Last day of our trip we planned to visit Kalpitiya and Bathlangunduwa. We were so tired and got up late and started the journey around 8.30AM. It took lot of time as the Puttalam – Anuradhapura (A12) is under construction. On Our Way to Puttalam we stopped at “Thabbowa Wewa” and relaxed a bit. It is near karuwalagaswewa and it was a nice location to have breakfast.

It took us almost 2 hours to traverse the perimeter of the island, thats how big it really is. We were in all honesty taken by surprise at the size and various different types of trees and vegetation located within the small space. We noted in one place a heap of godapora fruit, half eaten possibly by wild boar or porcupines announcing the presence of animals in the vicinity. In the center of the island on top of the larger trees flocks of birds gather and chirp peacefully.

Next Day was a big day for us as any of us haven’t been to Wilpattu National Park. Early morning we got up and headed to the park. Mr Chaminda Dissanayake, the owner of Kahala Jeep Safari gave us a great help arranging the best guides and the safari.