This the beginning of the SOBASIRI TEAM which is the combination of Me, Akila, and Malith, and later we welcomed Nirosh and Madusanka in 2014. This is not my very first adventure journey as I have started my adventure life in 2008 by visiting waterfalls around Kalutara area with my home town friend Jerom.

This is about Kodu Sri Pada pilgrimage along two hardest routes: Udamaliboda and Dehenakanda.

සමනළ වන මැද නටබුන් සොයා ගිය අපි මීළඟට ගියේ තවත් අපූරු ස්ථානයකට. ඒක කන්දක්. මහ කළු ගල් පර්වතයකින් හෙබි විශාල කන්දක් වන එය සමනළ කන්දට පෙනෙන්නේ තවත් කන්දක් සමගින් හාවී කඳු වැටියක් ලෙසයි. සමනළ කන්ද යනු ශ්‍රී ලංකාව ලෝකයට ගෙන ගිය සලකුණයි. මන්ද අතීතයේ අරාබි මුහුද හා ඉන්දියන් සාගරයේ යාත්‍රිකයන් මෙම අරුම පුදුම කන්ද දැක අප සශ්‍රීක ගොඩබිමට ගොඩවැදුණු බව නොරහසකි. අද අප සමනළ අඩවියේ හුදෙකලා වූ කන්දක් සොයා ගෙන ගියේ අතීතාවර්ජනයක්ද සමගිනි.

Paduruthalawa is another hidden entity of Sri Pada forest reserve. It’s height ranges from 1400m to 1690m. Camping on top of Paduruthalawa was a wonderful experience.

සමනල රක්ෂිතය යනු පූජනීය ස්ථානයක් බඳුය. උතුම් බුදු සිරි පතුල පිහිටි සමනොළගිර වන්දනාමාන කිරීමට උචිත උඳුවප් පොහොය සිට වෙසක් පොහොය දක්වා කාලය වාරය (Season) ලෙස හඳුන්වන අතර එය දළ වශයෙන් මාස පහකි. ඉතිරි මාස 7 අවාරය (Off-Season) ලෙස හඳුන්වන අතර ඈත අතීතයේ පටන් පැමිණි සම්ප්‍රදාය වනුයේ එයයි. එය හුදෙක් ආගමක් සම්බන්ධ වූ නියමයක් නොවන්නේ ඒ තුළ පරිසරයේ නියමයන් අන්තර්ගත වී ඇති හෙයිනි.

We all get these impulsive thoughts of doing things out of blue moon every now and then. Something like that happened when we visited Eli Hatha deep inside the Sri Pada Forest Reserve off Uda Maliboda in the first week of February. That journey, one of the dreams of Hari, turned out to be a great success, probably the best ever. During this journey I kept thinking of visiting the Most Sacred Mountain, Sri Pada via Uda Maliboda trail, one of the six known paths to the summit.

I was longing for it by the time we returned from Eli Hatha and didn’t wanna do anything else but that. So when I presented the thought to Dodam, my mate for the Beloved Lakegala, he seconded it with no second thoughts. So we fixed it for the 15 & 16 Feb. Thanks to Hari, I got the contact number of Yasawardhane mama, a real nature-loving gentleman who is very friendly, humble and helpful. When I called him to check the status of weather conditions and the trail, he gladly offered to help us. I, being the cautious type, asked if he could find a guide for us at least till we reach the Kuruwita trail but he said that there was no way we could go wrong yet promised to get someone at least for a part of the journey.

“Elihatha” is the most prominent water fall among Sri Lankan special and charming waterfalls. This is situated at Maliboda village, Daraniyagala. This falls continuously as seven falls which is situated in “Naya Ganga”. This river is commence from samanala Adaviya and fall down combining with Seethawaka River and then joins with kalu Ganga. Samanala Adawiya is very special biodiversity zone in Sri Lanka which having most conventional species of animal, flora & fauna.

This was my ninth visit to sacred foot print and I wanted to do it in combination of two uncommon routes. My plan was to climbing up by Dehenakanda-Mukkuwaththa road and getting down from Udamaliboda-Deraniyagala road. As I have been at these two routes before I could guide my other two companions.

We all met at Avissawella at sharp 11.00 as discussed earlier. We took a bus to Deraniyagala and got in to the Uda Maliboda bus which left Deraniyagala at 12.30 p.m. After reaching the Udamaliboda tea factory we hired two Tri wheelers to the base of First fall. After spending some time there we visited the second fall after a tiring walk through a footpath. But the journey was rewarding. We had a safe bath in the base pool and had our lunch there.

We started around 4.30 am from Kolonnawa, had our Breakfast closer to Deraniyagala. We had bought all our requirements on the previous day so we did not have any problems in the morning. We were at the Dik elikanda Primary School junction by 9.am; We got down from there and asked our Driver to meet us at Nallathanni following morning. We were at the Trail head by 10am..

I have a dream to visit Uda-Maliboda, ඇලි හත (Seven Waterfalls) for quite a long time. Finally with some of my friends we decided to do it in beginning of the year 2012. Our objective is to visit all the seven waterfalls without a guide and also explore the area. In the early morning at 5.00 AM we started the journey from Kiribathgoda by hired van. At around 9.30 AM we reached Uda-Maliboda. From there we had our breakfast and started the hike near the Naya Ganga.

It was about 7.30am when we started our journey from Kaduwela and our only stop was for breakfast past Avissawella. The scenery changed after the turn off at dehiowita, it was a gradual ascend with the not so good road conditions giving us ample time to admire the beauty of mother nature.