Safari in Yala National Park

Following our nature excursions in Gal Oya, we headed south to Yala, Sri Lanka's second-largest national park and home to the country's highest concentration of leopards.

We stayed at the Uga Chena Huts, an incredible all-inclusive beachfront hotel. There was a bar with spectacular views, a sundowners shack on the beach, cabins with private pools for guests, and a restaurant which served delicious food and every night featured a bull elephant crossing the beach just feet from the assembled diners!

The hotel also provided safaris into the national park, which we took full advantage of. Our guide, Janeth, was a tall, bearded Sri Lankan who was very knowledgeable about the local fauna and more than happy to go above and beyond to search for the wildlife we wanted to find.

Janeth told us that Yala national park is the oldest park in Sri Lanka and originally was a shooting reserve established by the British. The park comprises a variety of spectacular habitats, including open plains, dense forests and abundant lakes. The skyline is dominated by huge, towering rocks that can be found interspersed across the landscape.

Over the course of four safaris we saw so many iconic Sri Lankan animals - buffalos, crested hawk eagles, white-bellied fish eagles, mugger crocodiles, grey langurs, mongooses, spotted deer and jackals just to name a few. However, two animals stood out beyond all others. The elephants in Yala are very abundant - we saw both herds of females and their calves as well as solitary males. Highlights included a bull elephant wading through a lake to feast on lily pads, a rare "tusker" (90% of Sri Lankan bull elephants do not have tusks) grazing in an open plain under the watchful eye of a hawk eagle, and a young calf we saw at the end of our last outing, grazing in full view of our jeep.

However, the animal we most wanted to see was the elusive leopard - the park's iconic apex predator. Janeth warned us that, unlike lions and tigers, it's very difficult to predict where a leopard might show itself. On our first safari we were a little disappointed to not see one, despite waiting for an hour next to a tree filled with langurs making their panicked alarm calls. However, in all three of our subsequent outings we were lucky enough to spot the evasive big cats - the first was a huge male we ran into (and nearly ran over!) in the middle of a path, the second was a juvenile female basking on a large rock in the dying light of sunset, while the third was another young female quietly stalking a small herd of deer, who were totally oblivious to this approaching predator. Dad, Harry and I were very excited to see if the leopard would manage to make a kill, though Mum was feeling very worried for the deer. Fortunately for Mum, the leopard was a little too inexperienced to successfully pounce on a deer, despite the herd absent mindedly wandering directly towards her!

The safaris were an unforgettable experience and highly enjoyable for us (and seemingly also for Janeth). Our only disappointment was that we didn't manage to spot a sloth bear, though Janeth mentioned that it is very hard to find them in January - he only sees 2-3 all month. Overall, our stay in Yala was action-packed, filled with wildlife, and immensely enjoyable for all four of us.Read more