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| Year and Month | 25, 26 January 2014 |
| Number of Days | 1st day morning of a 2 day trip |
| Crew | 30 |
| Accommodation | N/A |
| Transport | Bus |
| Activities | Visit the heart of great Mahaweli project, Gather Knowledge |
| Weather | Sunny |
| Route | Horana -> Hanwella -> Pasyala -> Kandy -> Digana -> Theldeniya -> Victoria -> Randenigala -> Mahiyanganaya |
| Tips, Notes and Special remark |
***Special Thanks to Mr. Gunasena Hettige who conducted a very detail, valuable presentation about Victoria Project. |
| Author | Dilhan Jayakody |
| Comments | Discuss this trip report, provide feedback or make suggestions at Lakdasun Forum on the thread |
First of all after a long time(nearly 2 years) found a time to write a report.
Then this is not just an ordinary trip report which I used to write with details of places visited and other related information. It has more educational value, especially for school children. Victoria was one of the mega structures in those days. But most of us not much aware about the interesting story behind this mega project. Therefore I thought of sharing this with you all. Below video gives more insight about great Victoria Hydropower project.
I can remember in late 80’s and early 90’s this was the biggest project ever happened in Sri Lanka and a lot of people went to witness this. In those days this is one of the must see destination for school educational trips. Same as others I also went there several times in late80’s and early 90’s. Not only because of educational value. But also to see the hundreds of giant earth moving machines at a single place, like bulldozers, Cranes, giant trucks, etc. I loved those machines. But after those days I couldn’t visit until 2014 even though I passed by Theldeniya several times. One fine day in 2014 I went to visit Victoria while I was going to Mahiyangnaya. It was nearly after 20 years of my last visit of Victoria. While I was at the Victoria visitor center there were some other groups as well and 1 person was nicely explaining the story of Victoria project. Because of his descriptive explanation we also went there and listen that. Initially we thought he was belongs to that particular group. But later we got to know he is one of the few technical officers serve for Mahaveli project since from the beginning. He is Mr. Gunasena Hettige. He was kind enough to spend another 30 minutes for our group. Hence don’t need to write further. Let’s listen to Mr. Hettige…
 View from visitor center |
 Zoomed |
 Meeting of Mahaweli(Right) & Hulu(Left) rivers |
 Mahaweli River |
 On the Dam |
 Foundation stone – click to enlarge |
 Visitor Center |
 View from the dam |
 Late Minister Gamini Dissanayake |
 Margaret Thatcher |
After that we went to Adikarigama to visit the biggest hydro power generation complex in SL by crossing the Mahaweli river through the giant Victoria Dam. It contributes 210MW to the national grid. There are 3 turbines which has capacity of 70MW each.
 Power station at Adikarigama |
 Divided in to 3 |
 To 3 turbines |
 Outlet, Mahaweli re-born and flows to Randenigala |
Then we went Mahiyanganaya via Randenigala on ‘Raja Mawatha’
 Randenigala Dam & Power Station(The biggest reservoir of Mahaweli Project) |
 Power Station Zoomed |
 Full of Water |
 The Dam & Knuckles range in background |
 The View… |
 The gates |
 View towards Rantambe & Mahiyanganaya |
 Thanks Mr. Gunasena Hettige |