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.

When I searching for the mountains above 2000m I found this beauty around Chariot Path which is nearly height for more than 2100m. After postponing for about 3-4 times I got prepared this hike with my brother in law and Sajith. We left from Ja-Ela at 12 midnight and met Sajith at Yakkala about 12.30 am and we left to Pussellawa. We came to Pussellawa around 4 am and slept for 1 hour until the sunshine. It was nearly a 2 hr sleep and we started our journey to Perattasi through that gravel road and we took about 2 hr to reach Perattasi old hospital.

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. 

This is a waterfall where we need to have a hard hike throughout the day. Even though you come from the usual Nagrak roadside it is more difficult for you to reach up to the turning bend near to the Nagrak Bungalow. Ihala Galagama/ Landuyaya road is the road to Hawagala Mountain.

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.

This is about Kodu Sri Pada pilgrimage along two hardest routes: Udamaliboda and Dehenakanda.

Randenigala mountain range is a unique and lesser-visited area due to the massive risk of wild elephants. Because all the drivers can see elephants at Raja Mawatha which go through the VRR forest reserve where no other residences or even a single resting place on that road. We had this experience along with our Hegasulla Hike done on the same day morning. After we came to the top of Hegasulla Mountain we decided to descend to the Randenigala range and climb up all three main peaks of the range.

It was a very hard hike as we were lack of water. Our water reserve was finished at Hegasulla and however, we started our trek to Randenigala range with a hope that we will meet up a stream. It was not difficult as we had to walk through Maana bushes and at some point it was difficult on climbing as falling of rocks and slippering.

We had a train journey to Nuwaraeliya for meet a special person of our member. Since Madusanka is there, we thought to visit Ravan Fall which couldn’t see on our previous journey. So, we took Madusanka’s car and driven to Perawela to see the Bomburu Bride as we cannot pass her without visiting and after that we went to Ravan fall and spend sometime over there.

After that we went to Hakgala botanical garden we I have been there for the last time on 2002. Since we had enough time to roaming around Nuwaraeliya we walked along the paths and had a silent exploration about a path to climb Hakgala Mountain. Because Hakgala is a high sensitive forest reserve and as we heard on one can climb this giant mountain due to this restrictions. However we couldn’t find any secret path or even any clue about climbing this mountain but we were able to achieve this mountain range in October 2018 successfully. But at that time I and Malith are only able to do this secret hike and still we didn’t published any details about that hike as we are not able to disclose the methods we followed.

Katalagolla oya is situated at the Northern border of VRR Forest reserve. We had this great experience about 2 years ago with our Sobasiri team. This is a dangerous hike as we have to consider on many facts. Hence enjoy this hike on a moderate weather day with fully equipped items. You need to have a good plan about the journey and the time management is necessary on this hike due to the difficulty of the journey.