After two years of planning and reading trip reports in Lakdasun and posts on Elakiri about Doowili ella, finally we were able to gather 4 people (well, in the beginning there were 6 and on the day sprit was remain), who were extremely needed to do this hike.

After reading few Lakdasun trip reports we were tempted to go on this hike. We knew it’s hard but going to be a lifetime experience. I was checking the weather situation frequently with Wasantha(Pitawala) and finally decided it’s going to be 5th to 7th June 🙂 Duwili Eli can be reached through few roads. The routes I heard are Rambukoluwa, Walpolamulla, Ranamure, Meemure and Bambarella.

How can I start? As you may aware Sri Pada and Knuckles are my favourite places on earth. I used to visit them at least 2-3 times per year. If I talk about knuckles it’s a vast area covering more than 30 mountains, more than 20 isolated villages, so many waterfalls and caves large variety of flora& fauna etc. Importantly in this range you can find waterfalls cascading over caves. One example is Sera Ella in Puwakpitiya area.

The idea of seeking knuckles like a beautiful dream of a seeker is born in my heart before long time ago. The end of my interest is run out of this journey with beautiful memories. I give my special thank to “Lakdasun” because of the help for materialize my dream.

On top of the Manigala we could see Doovili Ella far away towards the Kalupahana range. That day we all decided to visit this somehow. Eventually we could visit all other water falls in the poem and hiked Manigala peak 3 times after that, but we couldn’t go to Doovili Ella, because it is difficult to reach that. There were only a very few who have done this hike and it was difficult for us to gather some information as well

Walpolamulla is the most remote village exists in the Reversturn area and now it has been almost abandoned due to the threat of wild elephants. But still there are families coming there to cultivate the fields they owned yet there is one person lives there. Also there is a tracking trail which we think that is quite famous but we were not aware of it before.

We started our journey from Katubedda at about 11.30 in the night. The crew was six. We came Colombo fort at 12.30 am from bus. Because of four day vacation there were huge crowd in the Kandy busses. We found group of boys and girls who go Knuckles range also. We set with them and hired a van to go Matale. At 3.30 am we came from Colombo. At 7.30 am we arrived to Matale. We got the Matale -> Riverston -> Illukkmbura -> Pallegama -> Narangamuwa CTB bus and came to Rathninda.(If u want Matale CTB depot no: 0662222281)