Wewelthalawa is a plateau located in Amanawela – Yatiyanthota region on the mountain top, above a height of 2,800 feet. It lies in the center of a ring of mountains like a bottom of a basin. This belongs to Halgolla Estate of Kelani Valley Plantations Ltd.

Nawalapitiya is like a inter change for many beautiful places in central province. Here are some information about the routes connecting with Nawalapitiya town.

It was December holidays again we decided to have a family trip and we opted to cover part of the East this time. On a Friday I made some calls to two friends at Ampara and Trinco and got 2 hotels booked. This was intended to be a road trip with time to rest in between.

Sidupiyanila is a catholic seminary where they train students who are at their final stage of being a priest. This place was the home for our first trip as well as for 4 another trips.

As per my experience, Devil’s Staircase road is the most hardest, dangerous and beautiful road in Sri Lanka. I knew about this on 2012 and I was lucky to visit there at the beginning of 2013.

Every year we handover school items to rural school. Last time we went to rural school in Badulla. This time we choose Narangamuwa Primary School in Laggala Pallegama to our project.

This trip was happened in January 2013. I wanted to go the highest mountain in Sri Lanka and at that time I knew that is not allowed due to high security reasons. However I directly called Ministry of Defense office and explain them about my requirement.

In childhood I heard that song “Haputal Api Yanawa”. Ever since I want to go to Haputale. I should admit Haputale is very scenic place although people do not visit Haputale as much as some other over rated places. It is a small town with plenty of places to accommodate. You can reach Haputale by bus or train if you use public transport.

Ok, back to Runakanda. This is a part of Sinharaja actually but is now being proposed as a separate Forest Reserve. I hope this will get legalized soon as we’re fast losing our forest areas. Even Runakanda like many wet zone rain forests have been ravaged by the Walla Patta Hunters. According to villagers many outsider had come in gangs and stayed inside the forest living in makeshift shelters or caves chopping down Walla Patta trees and making loads of money. The FD and Police are in high alert even though the damage has already been done thus the reason why you shouldn’t venture into these areas on your own.

We heard that the FD is now distributing Walla Patta plants for commercial planting where they help with the chemicals to produce that specific bit of residue after 5 years. At the age of 8, the tree is good to cut down and harvest. Hopefully these will put a stop to the destruction of our virgin forests.

Just a brief word on HP, especially its buildings inside as most of you might not be aware of her past. Apart from the Farr Inn and the Anderson Lodge which were built by the English Planters during colonial era, all the other structures are results of the mega potato farm that saw HP lose most of her forest making it this grassy plain. Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, well I’ll leave your capable thinking to decide. So these buildings had been used as storage for potatoes and fertilizers, staff quarters and other purposes. If you visit the Moon Plains where they still have a government-owned seed potato farm, you can get an idea what it must’ve been at HP before being named as a wildlife park.

So we planned alternative options to visit on the way and I was long overdue for a visit to Moon Plains and so was Hasi. We then planned to be there by 6.30am in order to get the best out of the morning rays. Hasi then came up with the idea of visiting Single Tree Hill aka One Tree Hill, the 10th highest mountain in SL with a height of 2100m. So that sealed the first day and we decided to reach HP afterwards. On the 25th Jun, we left home around 3am and having made excellent ground arrived at Nuwara Eliya by 6.10am.

While our journey from Kandy to Nuwaraeliya via Ragala road, we turned right to the Mandaramnuwara road as a villager said that this route might be easy for us since we are at heavy rain in the evening.

So this was a learning curve for Ana and his team when they explored possible materials for marking the path to the summit of Namunukula (NMK). We discarded the idea of Polythene and Laminated Sheets as they too would ultimately add to this ever-growing collection of waste which the Mother Nature can’t digest. We discarded the idea of using those aerosol cans for paint the rocks to mark the path too. As it’d ruin the beauty of the nature and those toxic ingredients in them might harm the tiny species. After a lot of deliberation, we decided on wood. Yeah, the best option given the circumstances as it is environmentally-friendly, long-lasting and easy to find. To make it blend with the environment (not to camouflage, mind you), Ana had them painted in green.

To make it more useful, he added some environmental messages on to them with a picture of an eagle with piercing eyes to inform that we’re watching your dirty work if you happen to litter, poison or harm the Mother Nature. So he got together with one of his longtime friends, Stefan (the fella who conquered Kurullangala with us), Deepani (another environmental enthusiast cum veterinary) and his one of daughters for this venture. Sadly I’d made prior arrangements with Hasi for another journey, not a conservation project, thus missing this journey.