Ella Rock is more popular among foreigners than locals, I can safely say. Almost all the foreigners who visit Sri Lanka go to Ella (they pronounce it as Ela rather than Ella with double Ls). It’s said that Ella is among the three mostly visited places in Sri Lanka by the foreigners after Dalada Maligawa and Pinnawala. Climbing Ella Rock was (before our journey) said to be a relatively easier task and there was no guide needed. So we too decided to attempt it without a guide. I don’t usually like to do any hike without a guide as the pros always outweigh the cons of having a guide even though we have to pay him some money. I believe it is money well-spent as those people who guide us will learn to protect those environmental treasures instead of trying to make easy money by destroying them.

Now to find the correct trail to the Ella Rock. Please follow this and you’re not going to miss your way. Walk past Kital Ella Station (when coming from Ella) and continue for about 300m until you find a road to your left hand side. It’s not quite prominent when coming along the railway line so keep an eye out for it. It’s just a gravel (rather earth) road and take it and after a 50-100 meters it’ll cross the stream that feeds the Ravana Ella (not the Bambaragama Ella found on Ella-Wellawaya Road) with a concrete bridge. You can of course see the Ravana Ella when coming from Ella towards Kital Ella. Now just follow this road all the way to the summit. Fairly straight forward, isn’t it? It’s about 2-3km moderate hike to the Ella Rock.

It’s been while after my last report. I did Wangedigala Hike on September 2014. It didn’t go well because of bad weather condition so I didn’t write a report. Then I planned to hike to HP via Kalupahana – ohiya on December. Again unpredictable weather condition stopped me. So I decided to go Ella.

It was a rainy Friday when I went to Gampola from Colombo to spend the weekend at my aunt’s place. I took the 5.50 am train from Colombo and reached Gampola at about 10.30 am. My mother was at my aunt’s place and as we were having a small chat, she wanted me to go to Haputale and deliver some documents to a relative. I was instantly willing to go because I have not been to Haputale for years. As soon as I was dreaming about going by train to Haputale, I remembered Ashan ayya’s trip report on his hike from Badulla to Ambewala 🙂 YES, I wanted to do at least a small bit of it.

Although I had been to Ella Rock Point many, many, many times before, it is this time that I decided to write about it.

Ella is one of the famous tourist destinations in Sri Lanka and well known among tourist as a hiking destination. Ella rock and Little Adams peak are among those famous viewpoints. Since it was a nice sunny day with a clear sky I decided to hike around Ella. My first destination was the famous Ella rock which is about 1350m in height. After arriving at around 8am to Ella I started to walk along the railway track (which is prohibited by law) towards Kithal Ella station.