New Years Eve

The weather hasn't been great in Mirissa (rain almost every day), so we spent the last few days alternating between quick swims at Mirissa Beach and back at our hotel. On the one day it didn't rain, we hired a scooter and went for a small tiki tour of nearby Coconut Tree Hill, Polhena Beach and Matara. We hired snorkels at Polhena Beach (as we'd read that green turtle sightings were pretty much guaranteed), but what we experienced was dead coral, extremely poor visibility (no further than an arms length) and no green turtles. It was a little disappointing, but we've been spoilt with swimming with turtles in other places, so we weren't too upset.

We were looking forward to New Years Eve as there were several stages on the beach set up by the beach restaurants/bars. However, it rained all day and all night, with roads flooding around Mirissa. We ended up getting dinner at Big Belly Restaurant, ice cream from the supermarket and then walked down to the beach to see what was happening. We had a bit of a dance in the rain at one of the stages which was playing 90s/early 2000s songs, before heading home and getting into bed at 10.30pm. We watched Netflix until midnight and then called it a night. A bit of a different new years for us, but still fun nonetheless!Read more