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Holiday at ‘BACK OF BEYOND – DEHI GAHA ELA’ – Dambulla |
Although it was a 3 day trip arranged by ‘Lakdasun’, for me it was much more than that as we were invited to stay at ‘Back of Beyond – DEHI GAHA ELA’ in Dambulla, a couple of days more by Uncle Yohan.
I had seen photographs of this place and I knew it was going to be a fantastic holiday. I was so excited about it.
A Three Day Trip to Kumana National Park |
My parents told me that we were going to spend three nights camping in Kumana. I had never been there before but had seen a lot of pictures of Kumana taken by my father who had been there several times during the past few months.
This was also going to be my first camping trip in a National Park.
A Three Day Trip to Anuradapura, Polonnaruwa, Minneriya National Park,Sigiriya |
We started our trip from Colombo at 4.30 am and we came puttulum at about 7 am and we visited wind mill developing site at Puttulum lagoon. After that we started our journey again through Auradapura and we had our breakfast at beautiful place. We stay at Nuwarawewa rest house. It is reasonable and good accommodation option at Anuradapura. Second day we went to Polonnaruwa through habarana.We stay at Girithale Hotel It is little bit Expensive but you couldn’t get that nature experience any were.
An outdated story of the ruins located out side the ancient city of Polonnaruwa |
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.
Trip to Yala National Park |
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)
Camping trip to UdaWalawe and driving along the Kalthota scenic road |
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.
Knuckles – Doovili Eli – Kalupahana 2010 |
Started from Colombo fort at 6.00 a.m. but got into a Kandy bus around 8.30 a.m. as it was the start of the ‘Wesak weekend ’. From Kandy to Wattegama around 1 hour in the bus and the last bus from Wattegama to Bambarella at 7.15 p.m.
There are enough buses on normal days to Bambarella from Wattegama. Even from Kandy there are few. Total distance from Kandy to Bambarella – 38km.
Visit to Muthurajawela Visitor Center |
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.
Wilpattu National Park, Horse Mountain, Thumbapanni |
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.
A Three Day Trip To Nilgala – Gal Oya National Park |
We left Colombo at around 4 pm on Friday, planning to stay overnight at the Wildlife Trust TREE centre at Randenigala. We left Kandy at around 7.30 pm after picking up a member of our group. It was a wet night and visibility was poor – interestingly the route tracked on my GPS (which has preloaded 1” topo maps of Sri Lanka) varied quite significantly from the roads marked on the map. We reached the barrier at the reservoir shortly before 10 pm – the road is closed to traffic at 10 pm, and reopened at 6 am, and reached the TREE centre soon afterwards.
