Gombaniya is the highest mountain in Knuckles forest reserve and about 1906m. It was situated near the Alakolla Estate at Hulu Ganga. Yakungehela mountain is the most nearest mountain to Gombaniya and fromthe eastern  the edge connecting to Sudugala and towards Lahumanagala. From the northern side its goes up to Knuckles Kirigalpotta. And Gombaniya is the mountain which can easily seen to the other mountains. Specially we can see this full range at Duwili Fall. Further we have seen this at the top of Knuckles 5 peaks but it couldn’t seen at the top of Alugal Kanda and Dumbanagala since those summits got hide from the 5 peaks. However this full mountain range is visible to the road from Panwila to Kabaragala via Madulkele and Kellebokka.

Gombaniya (1906m) is the highest peak of Knuckles mountain range. This is our one day hike to false popular summit and true peak of Gombaniya.

In 2014 when I hiked Gombaniya I did note this magnificent giant called Yakkunge hela and ever since that day I wanted to conquer it so It was pushed up the list on 2019 and It didnt fail my expectations.

We start our journey from Sigiriya & our next destination was Matale. On that way we went to see “Nalanda Gedige” & Matale “Alu Viharaya”

Waterfalls have always been my great passion and will always be. It’s such pleasure to go see them flowing down in their pristine white veils looking like angels descended straight from heaven. However it’s so painful and depressing to witness the tragic situation enveloping these gorgeous virgins by the vicious, greedy and ignorant people in our country.

The future of them looks so uncertain and I wonder how many of them will still be standing in a few years. So my aim to go see as many of these beauties has to be intensified especially in the monsoon season. I was glad when Hasitha called asking what my plans were for Poson. Tony and I celebrated Vesak skirting around Deraniyagala and the prospects of doing something similar on Poson lifted my spirits tenfold. I suggested we visit Bambarella following Niroshana’s footsteps. Even though Hasi had been there before, he still wanted to do it once again as there had been very little water at the time due to the drought.

Our initial plan was to visit at Knuckles peaks from Bambaralla and this was a suddenly planned trip due to misty covering of Knuckles peaks. Although we expected to have energetic waterfalls due to monsoon rain it didn’t happen.

One of my favorite hiking places is knuckles. I can still remember my first trip to knuckles about decade back. It was in 2003 and we went to Meemure and hike Lakegala Mountain. After that I went several times to Knuckles range with different entry points. Last time in April 2013 we hike Knuckles peaks. After this I had a dream to climb highest peak in Knuckles range, its Gombaniya Mountain. I read a trip report published in LAKDASUN.

So on the 16th 2 of us left Delgoda at 4am picking up the 3rd member on our way from Dambadeniya. By about 6.30am we were at kurunegala and proceeded towards ibbagamuwa as we intended to take the dodangaslanda – yatawatta road to matale.
The 38km distance from ibbagamuwa to matale was a gradual ascend. The scenery as we gained elevation was breathtaking.

After Lakdasun 2nd gathering I got to know some wonderful people and was able to go on some trips with them. So my first trip after that was with Mithila, Ashan, Sheham, NG, Kasun , Theshantha etc. Interestingly that was my favorite place on earth “ Sri Pada”. Then I recently went on with two other wonderful members of LAKDASUN, SANKETHA and ATULA. Interestingly that was my second favorite place on earth , “Knuckles the Misty Mountains “

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.

I was waiting to do this trip for a long time and fixed 1st September with my friend although we new meemure was quite dry at that time. Thanks for Lakdasun and Nadegura for your nice trip reports.Those were very useuful. Although Public transport was available we decided to go on my bike as we get the chance to stop where we want and see the beauty of surrounding. We left Colombo ( Battaramulla ) at 5.30 a.m. reached Kandy around 8.30. On the way stopped at kadugannawa for breakfast.

Since we have been to Knuckles from Deenston, Meemure side and Riverston Illukkumbura side, this time we decided to explore knuckles from another side which is ‘Bambarella’ and hike ‘Knuckles’ mountain in knuckles range. And visit several uncommon waterfalls in the same area. It was a rainy season and we heard all those waterfalls are in full flow these days when we inquired from the people living in that area.