I see this mountain from faraway almost every day but had not got a chance to climb it until one day my father said “Get ready, tomorrow we are going to Piduruthalagala”

It was one of the dream trip for Dhanushka and myself to Go around Srilanka on our motorcycles. We thought why not call it “Around Srilanka in 80 hours” and to circumnavigate around Srilanka in less than 80 hours. We decided to leave on 18th February 2012, Dhanushka rode 35 km from Colombo to Negombo and we both left around 11am. The plan was to ride to Jaffna and stop over for the night.

I got to know about Manakanda (381.3m) from an article written in the book called Wanasena wanapeth (වැනසෙන වනපෙත්).Then one of my friends lives in Maradankadawala (මරදන්කඩවල) joined with me for this journey.
I reached Maradankadawala about 11am by Colombo-Anuradhapura bus. (A9 Road).

As my 2nd journey of my 2012 vacation I decided to take a trip to Matale to visit few cascading beauties around the area. As many of our members has done it is no means a hike or some sought of. But just a road trip where we went on search few places where you could find the waterfalls around the area.

You can reach Nagalakanda from Pollonnaruwa archeology site. Once you pass the Minneriya town it is situated in about 200m towards the Colombo on right hand side. If you are coming from Colombo, it is in left hand side just before Minneriya town. Better to ask from villagers. But it is easy to find.

Ohiya is a rural village and one of the most scenic and coolest places in Sri Lanka. Normal temperature is less than 12 Celsius. It’s a lonely and sleepy town. The entire town consists of two boutiques and the railway station only. Nearest town by road is Boralanda (10 KM). Nearest Petrol shed is Welimada (22 KM).

Night of 7th April 2012. I was waiting for the Poththuvil bus at Kaduwela junction. The bus was expected in Kaduwela at 9.45p.m. The bus arrived on time. Since we had spoken to the bus crew in advance they had seats reserved for me and Priyanjan. With extra loud music on, the bus sped along deserted roads at night.

We wanted to leave as early as possible but we also wanted to make sure that we see the sunrise from the eastern most point. With what we experienced in the previous day we were determined to ride as much as possible before noon. So we loaded everything in bicycles first and then went to the beach to see the sunrise.

It dawned to the second day of our cycle tour across the country. By 6.00 a.m. we were on the road leaving Uhana, heading towards Polwatta Junction. The Himidurawa road to Polwatta was great cycling route with lots of scenery and diversity.

Dawn of our third day of the tour was a very colorful one. As usual we were on the road by 6.00 a.m. We had to track back about 1km from the temple to find the gravel road through Nilgala forest towards Komana.

The night under stars in Maduruoya National Park was incident free. The first task of the day following morning was to pay an early morning visit to the Ulhitiya reservoir to see the Sunrise. It was just few hundred meters away from the wildlife office. We came back to the main irrigation canal and took the gravel road that ran parallel to the canal.

After a good night sleep we woke up to witness a beautiful morning in the middle of Knuckles range. Plan for the day was to cross over to the A9 highway at Naula, riding through some remote roads winding through knuckles range. As usual the departure time was 6.00 a.m. We thanked ශාන්ත අය්යා for the great help and hospitality and wished them all a happy new year. Then we started our journey towards Puwakpitiya from Illukkumbura via the Sera Ella road.