It’d been a long time since Harinda and I’d gone on a journey together and when he said that he was gonna get 6 days straight off, I decided to reap the benefits. Hari’s initial plan to visit “Eli Hatha” in Maliboda had to be called off due to intermittent rains and falling on a sudden plan B (in fact it’d been nagging at me for the past year or so), I suggested we visit Pitadeniya searching for some more waterfalls (possibly following Niroshana’s Steps) in and around Neluwa, Lankagama and Pitadeniya. As per Niro’s report, he’d mentioned about Wedan Ella (unfortunately not been able to visit her) on Neluwa-Thawalama Road. When I mentioned this to Hari, he said that one of his friends, Gabriel is from Thawalama and I prompted him to get the info about this Wedan Ella.

Rambukoluwa is a traditional village at Knuckles forest reserve. This might be a vanishing village in near future as they have planned to build a reservoir by crossing Kalu Ganga. Though Rambukoluwa is not covered by this reservoir, villagers are asked to leave the village.

We took a Welimada-Bogahakumbura bus (alternatively you can take a Welimada-Boralanda bus which will take you to the turn off towards Alawathugoda) and got off at Bogahakumbura town and hired a tuk-tuk to reach the destination which was about 3-4km away. Surprisingly enough most of the people knew about the waterfall even though it’s not a prominent one. The road is under construction and in a somewhat bad condition.

We reached the Alawathugoda village passing the Community Hall where we had to walk as the road had been concreted and left to rest. It was a good 600-800m walk which took its toll on Podi who kept panting all the way. Unfortunately there was very little water and it made us feel very down. Well, you can’t always be lucky and see them in full flow I guess.

Waterfalls have always been my great passion and will always be. It’s such pleasure to go see them flowing down in their pristine white veils looking like angels descended straight from heaven. However it’s so painful and depressing to witness the tragic situation enveloping these gorgeous virgins by the vicious, greedy and ignorant people in our country.

The future of them looks so uncertain and I wonder how many of them will still be standing in a few years. So my aim to go see as many of these beauties has to be intensified especially in the monsoon season. I was glad when Hasitha called asking what my plans were for Poson. Tony and I celebrated Vesak skirting around Deraniyagala and the prospects of doing something similar on Poson lifted my spirits tenfold. I suggested we visit Bambarella following Niroshana’s footsteps. Even though Hasi had been there before, he still wanted to do it once again as there had been very little water at the time due to the drought.

Ambokka which is an isolated mountain situated at the border of Kurunegala-Matale districts. (Border of Wayamba-Central provinces). It is also called Kondagala කොන්ඩගල (looks like a bunch of hair) and Salagama Kanda (සැලගම කන්ද). Special feature of this mountain is, most of the time peak is wrapped by the mist. No other peaks in this area are covered by the mist like this.

Just after Hari’s Doowili Eli Hike, I received a call asking if I’d like to join him for a leisure journey as he felt he deserved a break after the mighty hike. I too didn’t mind one so long as it met my expectations. Fortunately, Hari managed to convince Sanketha too to join and we decided to go to Elpitiya where one of the least heard and explored Andahelena Falls is located.

He’d come across Malaka’s Trip Report about this waterfall and the nearby Monastery, Diwankaralena and we thought it’d be a good opportunity for us to visit them at a snail’s speed. He set the date for 15 May and it turned out I will of course not have a break as Tony and I were to visit waterfalls in Ratnapura and Deraniyagala on 13 and 14 May.

We set off around 6.30am on the 15th May in Sanketha’s car and I was grateful for that coz 550+km on two consecutive days sitting on the back of Tony’s old bike had taken its toll on me.

The five-day holiday following Vesak Poya was a long awaited event in the calendar and we planned to venture into an area that we have never explored – Namunukula and Ella. Ella of course we have passed many times en route from Wellawaya, but Namunukula was a totally new destination.

Although I describe all these waterfalls under Rathnapura-Kalawana road, they are situated some distance away from the main road except Rajanawa Falls. Road condition of Rathnapura-Kalawana road is good following constructions. But road conditions are not good in some byroads.

After two very successful Waterfall Hunts, I decided to do a 3rd on 14 May (Vesak Full Moon Poya Day) immediately after the 2nd on 13 May. Vesak Poya brought back some very sweet memories of our Bathalegala Hike first-ever as a team.

Fortunately Tony too was on leave and after a exhausting but exhilarating journey around Kuruwita, Siripagama and Wewelwatte we decided to shift our focus to yet another waterfall mine, Deraniyagala. The foundation was laid thanks yet again to Ashan when he did a marathon of waterfall hunting a few months back which resulted in his record 100th post.

After reading several posts in Lakdasun we decided to do this hike. But holidays were just passing and finally we decided to make this on a weekend. So we took the Ratnapura bus from Mawanella early morning. But when we reached Bus stand they said as it was a holiday the bus will not run. So we got into a Colombo bus and get down from Kegalla.

After our Hunt on 01 May, I was yearning to do more of them as the season is ideal for it. However, there was this nagging feeling in the back of my mind about visiting Batadomba Lena as well for the past year or so. My visits to Beli Lena, Pahiyangala and Alawala Pre-Historic caves stimulated this idea more and more so decided to get two birds with one stone.

Tony managed to get permission from his Royal Highness and joined me for the 2nd leg of Tour de Waterfalls with his ever so trusted bike which is as old as him. We met around 4.30am and hit the High Level Road and were on our way merrily. However come Godagama and Tony suddenly braked hard to avoid a ghost Tuk-tuk which drove across with no lights whatsoever. The result was the headlamp of our bike came off and was hanging from the wires as a result of the brake. Just imagine how old is the bike and Tony himself. I was worried right throughout that Tony might fall apart just like the bike.

How can I start? As you may aware Sri Pada and Knuckles are my favourite places on earth. I used to visit them at least 2-3 times per year. If I talk about knuckles it’s a vast area covering more than 30 mountains, more than 20 isolated villages, so many waterfalls and caves large variety of flora& fauna etc. Importantly in this range you can find waterfalls cascading over caves. One example is Sera Ella in Puwakpitiya area.