Haputhale is a beautiful city with great attractions like Liption’s seat, Adisham’s Bunglow, Waterfalls and etc. I really enjoyed the cool climate and natural beauties of the city.

Time to solve a mystery and this time it was a success. Uma oya falls was another mysterious fall marked on Sri Lanka road map just like Galagama falls. Somehow with the help of Priyanjan I did locate it on Google earth and paying a visit was the next step. I have been loitering around Badulla for some time now and on two other occasions I did cover up few places around Badulla, Bandarawela & Wiyaluwa.

Kanneliya-Dediyagala-Nakiyadeniya is a forest complex in southern Sri Lanka. This is the last large remaining rainforest in Sri Lanka other than Siharaja. This forest is one of prosperous fauna zone in south Asia. It’s spread over 101.4km area. This is situated about 35km towards Northern western from Galle town. This forest provides good security to many of rivers in southern Sri Lanka. And also this rain forest is a main water source which filled up “Nilwala” & “Gin”.

This is when Ana called and asked if I would like to join him for a hike. Well, this is what you call being lucky and without so much as a second thought I jumped in. Well what would you do if it turned out to be a journey which you had done twice before within the last year? I don’t think many would have been fancy to take on that offer but not me. I don’t mind visiting the same place over and over again because everytime it’s a different experience. After all, we eat the same thing again and again, do the same boring things day after day so why not see and visit the same place every now and then, I keep asking myself. So when he suggested to do the Kirigalpoththa Trail once again (for the third time within a year), I felt elated quite different from many others.

Year and Month February 2015 ( 2,3,4 ) Number of Days Two and half days Crew Total: 8 Persons Six Wonderers ( Hi King , Stunt Prince , Silent Worrier, De Waterfall Hunter, Notorious Major & Jumbo ) Two Villagers as guides ( Suresh & Kadol ) Accommodation Village House and Camping in the jungle […]

I just checked out the time table of trains so that it’d give us a sense of times so that we could take precautions. These new Chinese trains are very quiet compared to the grumbling old German ladies. However I don’t think when it comes to performance, technology and endurance, the Chinese can come anywhere near. I’ve seen how they operate in my Exclusive Journey on the S12 some time ago. Hasi took over the meals with the help of his wife. Even though she wanted to join us, a sudden illness confined her to the house. We were very excited, especially Hasi as this was going to be his first ever rail hike. I could imagine how he felt coz it was the same when I was getting ready for my first rail hike.

We started out at 4 AM on day 1 and move towards Ratnapura on Horana Road. On the way we schemed to move towards Ampara and may be towards Trinco later on. We took a quick breakfast from a small wayside shop on the Horana road at about 6. We had passed Maha Saman Devalaya at Ratnapura so many times but never stopped since we always have been running with a another destination in mind. It was 6.45AM when we reached the Ratnapura Maha Saman Devalaya and there was almost no people there.

Both of us were looking for a getaway and this time we selected central hills rather than the usual dry zone. Went through the internet and finally found a nice place close to Nilambe. And yes the place was well worth and the perfect location with a window view towards Piduruthalagala western reaches (my kind of place). Though the food was terrible the surrounding environment made us forget it.

We took a tuk-tuk and headed along the Punagala road. The morning was chilly and the smell of wet earth wafting through the air was surprisingly good. This is another way to the iconic Lipton’s Seat. Usually people take the Haputale-Dambethenna road but this is also an alternative should you happen to start from Bandarawela. After about 5km, we came to a ‘Y’ junction where the Punagala road continued to the left while the right one goes to the Lipton’s Seat. It’s nicely carpeted and in good condition compared to the Punagala road.

I’ve been to Lipton’s Seat couple of times so decided to skip it for now. We carried on along Punagala road for about 3 more kms till Doolgolla where Doolgolla Ella is located. She’s at the edge of Craig Estate very close to the main road. You can see her from the road as well. There’s a shop and an estate signage just passing a bridge. That is where you have to stop and then take the tiny footpath to the right to reach the base of the falls that is only about 50m away.

Nilambe is a popular place in our area due to the Natural beauty. Exploring this area was a long waited dream for me. Our School Gang initiated the idea of visting the area along Nilamba Oya. This trail was done at during the period of February 2011.

It was Awurudu holidays and the weather was playing tricks on our minds but we didn’t want to let this holiday pass away without doing any hikes. There were two options it was either knuckles or sinharaja. So we decided go anywhere depending on the rain pattern. I was really motivated to do Knuckles after seen that Niroshan had covered all 5 peaks within a day and that was an inspiration for me (I’m sure you could read about that adventure in near future).

We passed the idea this way, that way and the other way and still got nowhere. After what felt like an eternity, we came to the conclusion that we need minimum two nights. We couldn’t anyway afford more therefore settled at two. Having arranged everything we set off on the dawn of Saturday, 21 February. Just a word on the way we were given the instructions by the Nagrak Management. They gave us the account details promptly to deposit money and other than mentioning about the electricity which is available from 6pm to 12 midnight, there was no other information given. It’s a major lapse from their end because the way Fishing Hut Management (click on the link to check the info sent by them) sent out the information was simply brilliant. They had gone to great trouble to put everything in writing so that there was no misunderstanding. We knew exactly what was they were giving and what we had to take. Further, what we could do and shouldn’t do. It was just great and I feel Nagrak Management failed to meet those standards. They have some catching up to do and do it fast coz that small lapse could lead to very unpleasant things and disappointments.