Nuwara Eliya and surrounds

It's funny how the winding roads don't seem wide enough for even a small car yet in Sri Lanka two large buses will be guaranteed to pass each other on these roads. When you're in a tiny tuk-tuk passing one of these it's pretty thrilling stuff. 

Day 11 (Tuesday 5th)

We left Diyatalawa early this morning to head to Horton Plains National Park. At Horton Plains we made the 3.5km hike via the Baker's Falls to World's End. World's End is the portion of the National Park that drops at a sharp cliff edge that literally seems like the end of the earth. Not so surprising to us anymore, the views here were insanely good. It's a shame that photos just can't to justice to the height and depth of the countryside you could see but we soaked it in with our own eyes over a long rest and some bikkies. As we climbed early we got a clear view of the south east provinces of the country but being renowned for it's cloud forest the mist was beginning to settle over the tops of the trees as we were leaving. Then the 3.5km hike to loop back around to the beginning passed the Little World's End (a smaller and lower cliff face) with a stop in the museum before we headed off. It was beautiful to see there were strict policies to avoid littering of the park lands and to prevent human impact on the environment. This did however mean the tracks were not well formed and we were skipping from rock to rock and avoiding tripping on tree roots for most of the journey. A challenging walk but totally worth it. 

I look like an oaf but it was cold and these
were my only warm clothes, don't judge too harshly.

We headed into Nuwara Eliya afterwards, first having lunch and a look around the shops in the main streets then heading for a paddle in a swan on Lake Gregory. From there we checked into our hotel "The Golf Green" which precisely as it might seem, backs straight on to the famous Nuwara Eliya golf course. We had a walk around all afternoon and are about to head back out for a bite to eat. Sri Lanka food is the bomb diggity if I hadn't mentioned in any previous posts. Much to my delight they have mangosteens here which I was told were rare outside the Colombo area. If roti is king, vegetable samosas are a humble queen served in recycled paper bags (newspapers, old math text books etc.).

The Hill Country

So our train ride was over and we were in Diyatalawa after dark greeted by a friend of a friend (standard). Instantly it was noticeable that the temp had dropped nearly ten degrees in the mountains. After a few beers with dinner we were placed in our accom for the next couple of days ready to sleep off the train ride and be on our feet... a lot. 

Day 10 (Monday 4th)

This morning we first journeyed off through the endless tea fields winding our way higher and higher until we reached Lipton's Seat lookout. A massive 2km above sea level this place offered close to 360 degree views of Sri Lanka, namely, the extensive tea plantations that flood the hills.

We took a pic with the man himself, Sir Thomas Lipton and had a cuppa with a pretty darn good backdrop. A monkey nearly jumped into our tuk-tuk and took our backpack whilst we were having a feed, so it was back down and up and down and up the winding mountains to visit stacks of waterfalls. 

The first waterfall we visited was the tallest one in Sri Lanka with a sheer 260 metre drop, Bambarakanda Falls. From there it was a 2km trek to Lanka Ella Falls. This was a tiny, overgrown, ill-defined track that began in the forest and opened on to the side of a mountain winding down into the water. I would be surprised if more than 10 people were on this track each day, it was so untouched. Next was Diyaluma Falls and our tuk-tuk driver certainly challenged us to climb as high as we could to the top. Finally after winding through half the country side we finished at Rawana Ella Falls in the late afternoon. Pretty epic but challenging for a girl with a bung knee to climb, I happily watched Dav and our driver climb higher as beneath them locals were bathing in the chilly shallow waters. 

Note: the tea fields surrounding Lipton's Seat are Rainforest Alliance Certified
and had the nicest quotations (like this one) scattered throughout. 

glamorous

Sometimes there are no pretty pictures to portray a day. Sometimes you feel like today you did nothing outstanding. Sometimes it seems you're just going through the motions of a different day.

Then you take just the tiniest second to ponder one thing you're proud of. It doesn't have to be proven with spectacular images or articulated in colourful language. It's just there. In your mind.

And then it seems, everyday is glamorous after all.