We have planned a journey for covering 5 main giants in Nuwaraeliya in 3 days. And we were able to conquer Mahakudugala (2101m), Single Tree (2105m) and Kikiliyamana (2242) on the first day and we spend the night near the entrance of Uda Radella farm and on the second day, we conquer Uda Radella (2143m) and Great Western (2215m) successfully.

Since Madusanka lives in Nuwaraeliya, he was able to take the oral permission to enter the Uda Radella farm and we found a kind person who works there and he told us some details about this forest and the leopards. And he switched off the electric fence and we crossed it and headed to Great Western through a giant forest. We had a GPS route and we followed it always and able to reach the Great Western viewpoint without any difficulty.

There was a special visit at Jetwing Hatton bungalows on that day and I left early morning around 5.30 am from Jaela and wanted to be at Hatton at 9 am. I was heard that Sripadaya can see near to Jaela Highway entrance but never had time to go there in the early morning. Since the sunrise wasn’t happening I thought to go and see whether Sripadaya is visible to that place.

Great Western Mountain (2212m) is the 7th highest mountain in Sri Lanka situated closer to Great Western estate and station. I have been there 9years ago and now the hike is not a difficult task with well paved pathways. We have added task to get down to Pundalu Oya side to explore hidden waterfalls.

I have always felt very sentimental about Great Western coz it was the turning point in my hiking life. When I went to GW last time, I told Morgan that we must camp on the summit one day and get the ultimate feeling of this beautiful lady. Oh, please check out the note I’ve put in the box at the top regarding GW coming down the list of Highest Mountains of Sri Lanka to the 7th place. It’s a mystery what this Kudahagala is and the Wikipedia gives no information as to its location, even the district. I wonder if this is the Agra-Bopath at HP coz there’s another mountain further down the list named Mahakudahagala at the 11th place with a height of 2096m. Casual search on Google didn’t yield anything fruitful either. Hopefully, one of you might be able to shed some light into this subject.

Let’s move on and start our journey, shall we? Anyway, she coming down the list was not a very happy thought for me. I wanted to take my hiking partner in the first journey, Hari with me but he wasn’t that sentimental about GW like me and decided to focus on something he’s not done before as the list of our to-do-things keep growing longer every passing day. So I was down to Uncle Tony, Atha and Prasa. Unfortunately, Tony had to pull out at the last minute leaving the three of us and we were in no mood to back off. Oh Atha too bought a tent with me so we wanted to try our tents at 2000+m.

The smartly dressed engine driver reminded me of a senior air force officer. Their uniforms were that good. Climbing up the steps into the engine at Nanu Oya was like a dream. Thinking back, I was as if sleep walking into it. Inside, the space was fully occupied by the two comfortable seats for the engine driver and his assistant, pilot and copilot in aviation terms. Behind them in the middle were two fire extinguishers. They could move about along the narrow path behind the seating. The engine compartment was the bulk of the sky blue enclosed wagon with no access whatsoever for others including them. If there was, I wasn’t gonna push my luck that far. The full length dashboard has various control panels including the touch LCD screen of the computer making it easy for the operators. The German and Canadian engines are more towards manual operations whereas this Chinese is largely computer-controlled.

If the desire of cossing Sri Lankan 6th highest mountain is born in my heart very earlier, it spent a long time to materialize it. The main reason for that is the vary weather condition of there. However I found a guide by didn’t leaving the try & contact with him. As a result of that finally Morgan responded me which I expected for long time & then prepared to crossign.

After the journey to Mandaram Nuwara and then to Victoria & Randenigala, I was feeling lonely and jittery. I’m sure Hariya would have thought differently but couldn’t ignore the proverb, “make hay while sun shines”. Watching TV was an agony, and news only managed to rouse the adventurer in me showing all the overflowing reservoirs, tanks and waterfalls. When they showed St. Claire in full flow, my heart not only missed just one beat, but quite a few. How wonderful even to see her come alive on TV. I was craving for the big moment. The news once again showed that the spills of wretched Upper Kotmale Reservoir were open so I could wait no longer. The next morning I called Morgan, and found out St. Claire was really blooming.

We planned to do this hike inspired by Ashan’s report. With a short notice we decided to go on Saturday and do the hike on Sunday morning and get back home the same day. We were anxious on the hike as Ashan was describing this as a strenuous and adventurous hike. As usual we agreed to go with no local guides so that we can experience adventure by missing the route.

I’ve seen mist before but lemme tell you that I’ve never seen something like this. The world around us was nothing but grey white and the odd black shadows of all kinds of trees were barely visible. We were practically crawling at a snail’s speed and it was no better than feeling your way in the dark. However we were intrigued by what we saw.

Eventually Tony had to get a torch and lower the shutter and aim at the edge of the road so that we wouldn’t fall into a drain. However lowering the glass made our hair stand on its ends and froze our exposed skin.

It was long ago I did a rail hike that was in February. So with the upcoming long weekend and been clueless, I decided to do a 3 day rail hike which I had to fast track to two days because Kasun invited me for another trip. Doing 65 Km’s for two days is more like a rail run but guess what I didn’t miss a thing. Walking speed was around 4.2Km’s/hour and I have never walked on a road even that fast. As most of you’ll know this stretch is not known for any special locations or scenery but I found out that there was lot to offer. My main focus was on flowers, may be wild or grown at stations as garden flowers, so please forgive me for adding many images of these beauties.

It’s been a year ever since Sri de Lakdasun was born and I wanted to celebrate his first birthday in an unforgettable way. He’s now beginning to stand on his own and even say a few words such as: Waterfall, Hike, Mountain, etc. It’s been so nice watching him grow bit by bit and learn things as the time goes on

I was on the foot board the whole journey, highly excited, enjoying it to the max. We passed many things and stations along the way. But one thing in particular got embedded in my mind. That was “Great Western Station”. The entering onto the Station area was grand and I can still remember that day. I’ve been viewing that picture every now and then and couple years back came to know about the GW Mountain which is surprisingly the 6th highest in SL.