Sri Lanka Part 2

It turns out Nandana was a bit loose with the truth regarding 'no more stairs' as on our journey today we stopped at Rambada Falls which were accessed by quite a few steps!

 We climbed rapidly through beautiful tea plantations with the temperature dropping noticeably as we progressed. We stopped at Blackwoods tea plantation for tea and cake before a tour through the processing plant.

After booking in to Haddon Hill Hotel, the most basic accommodation so far, we walked in to town with Nandana for lunch in a local eatery. It didn't look all that salubrious but the food was good and no nasty side effects. Nandana left us to our own devices so we wandered around looking at the Englishness of Nuwara Eliya. We decided it was time for a ride in a tuktuk so we hailed one for the journey back to the hotel.

Victoria Gardens, Bittern and Pile of puppies at Gregory Lake, lunch establishment

At 5 we met up with Nandana again and walked down to Gregory Lake. Fortunately we took his advice and changed in to some warm clothes as by the time we returned it was decidedly chilly.
Not so chilly that it required beanies, scarves, gloves, track pants and sweaters, as I saw on two young women out jogging at 6.30 the next morning! We left Michael in bed while we walked down to Victoria Park to do some bird spotting. Nandana was thrilled to see 2 birds he had not seen before, the Scimitar Babbler and the Forest Wagtail. We missed Michael with his camera, so will have to rely on the Internet for pictures. I also got to tick off the Grey Wagtail, Great Tit and Brown Shrike.

Brown Shrike, Sri Lankan Scimitar Babbler, Great Tit and Forest Wagtail

We had a lazy morning before boarding the train for a 3 hour trip to Ella, where Nandana was waiting for us. This was followed by a long drive on some spectacularly scary roads through the Ella Gap, passing Rawana Falls on the way. By the time we arrived in Tissamaharama we were all exhausted and ready for an early night.

The next morning, Liya, our guide for our day-long Safari, collected us at 5.30am and we headed into Yala National Park. Shortly after passing through the gates we saw an elephant in the trees munching on trees and then some spotted deer. We meandered around bird watching seeing some spectacular birds including the stork billed kingfisher and a hoopoe, until Liya received a call to say there was a leopard spotting so we spent 20 minutes tearing over rutted roads to find the leopard, along with everyone else, resting comfortably up a tree.
We followed this with a bit more birdwatching then a snooze and lunch in the shade, at the memorial site for the 35 people lost during the tsunami. The water here destroyed a couple of bungalows when it came through at 4m.

Tsunami memorial, with Liya, Malabar Hornbill, lunch

Stork billed kingfisher, changeable hawk eagle, hoopoe and little green bee eater

After our rest it was off to do some more birdwatching. As the afternoon cooled we stopped by a waterhole and waited a few minutes. We were rewarded by a visit from three elephants coming in for their afternoon drink. Then it was time to head out of the Park. As we were travelling alon Nandana called for a 'STOP' as he had seen a leopard. It was just off the road behind some ferns and after we eyeballed each other for a few minutes he was joined by another leopard and they wandered off in to the shrub. One of them settled down in the shrub opposite our jeep, still eyeballing us and licking its lips...maybe we were being sized up for dinner.

Elephants, leopards, spotted deer and mongoose in Yala

Nandana dragged me away from breakfast as he was thrilled to have finally found a scarlet fronted barbet. We had heard its call several times but never been able to pin it down. On the way to Galle we had a couple of brief stops finally arriving at Nandana's around noon.

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