We were enjoying hiking and trekking since 2011 after we entered the University of Colombo. This time we wanted to end the year (2016) with a novel experience. So we decided to camp on a beach and selected the amazing Kalpitiya (Kudawa) beach to fulfill our dream.

Palaitive is an Island situated closer to Jaffna peninsula. It has no inhabitants and Sri Lankan Navy base is situated. This is my experience about short visit at Palaitive Island for it’s annual festival at St. Anthony church.

Longest distance between two railway stations of Sri Lanka is 25.4km between Gal Oya junction and Agbo Pura. Trinco railway line goes through Kawdulla National park and Somawathiya forest reserve in this section. Rail walk along this section will give oppurtunitiy for visiting wild animals.

Wilpaththu NP (විල්පත්තු ජාතික වන උද‍යානය) is the largest (131, 693ha) and oldest national park in Sri Lanka. It is famous for visiting Leopards and wild bears. Special feature of Wilpaththu NP is having water filled natural lakes-Willus.

Galpadihela/ Kosgolla (1105m) mountain is situated closer to Mahiyanganaya. Ancient foot pathway from Ududumbara to Mahiyanganaya was at the base of this mountain. The lake Sora Bora Wewa was built by the giant called Bulatha and his wife has kept about 2000 stone steps along this foot pathway to make “Galpadipela”.

Every year February signifies that it’s time to walk along a stream exploring cascades and this journey was not even in my wildest dreams. It was picked up randomly after noting few cascades on Google earth in January while we were hiking Gal padihela.

Maduru oya National park (මාදුරු ඔය ජාතික වනෝදයානය) is one of four national parks created in Mahaweli Development project. It is situated crossing two districts: Polonnaruwa and Ampara. There are few isolated mountains situated at Maduru Oya national park. Omunugala is the highest of it (513m).

Initially there were 5 members (3 of my old school mates, me and my better half) for the trip. We wanted to be little adventures and the destination chosen was Yala Nationala Park.

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.

Somawathiya temple (Somawathi Chethiya) is one of the popular places among Buddhist devotees. The right sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha was kept at Somawathi stupa. It is said there are seven acessory stupa around Somawathi temple. This is our attempt to visit one of them.

Gongala (1357m) is the highest peak of Sabaragamuwa Hills. Gongala is a range and it’s appearance of an ox gives the name Gongala. But the highest point of Gongala range is not Gongala, another point of Gongala. Sabaragamuwa hills are also known as Rakwana hills/ massif

Sri Lankan rail tracks run in different environmental locations of the country where you can have different experiences with rail walk. Rail hike along central part gives maximum beauty of the country and costal rail walk is totally different from it. We thought of doing a rail walk in dry zone mainly rail tracks runs through forests.