Ampitithenna

We got up at just after 5 so we could get ready for the safari pick up. Straight away we were glad that we’d put jeans and a jumper on as the jeep sped towards the park entrance we were getting pelted with dirt and cold air! We went to the park entrance and our driver went to get the pass. He took ages and ages and pretty much all the trucks left, so I went to enquire with him what was going on. He said that he had to wait for another driver who had money! Another example of Asia never making sense. We were keen to get going as this was a sunrise safari and it was rising quickly!! Finally we got on our way into Udalalawe.

Pretty much as soon as we got in we saw an elephant and it’s baby. We knew that we’d see them but not that quick! The next hour was spent bumping around seeing Serpent Eagles, owls, water buffalo, foxes, kingfishers, storks, a rare wild cat, and bee eater birds...not to mention the thousands of peacocks. I was thinking that maybe we wouldn’t see any more elephants, but then we saw a massive herd just ahead. Round about 10 of them just grazing. It was our jeep and one other which was, unfortunately, full of Russians who wouldn’t stay quiet and were trying to touch and stroke the elephants as they came closer...stupid. We had about 40 minutes with the herd and just observed them grazing. They eventually moved on and so did we. The rest of the time was spent just looking at some amazing birds and listening to the dawn chorus.

We got taken back to the accommodation for some hoppers for breakfast from our host. Even though we had two nights booked, we had decided to leave Uduwalawa today and find accommodation on the way to Liptons seat to spare the huge journey (plus there wasn’t much else to do here). Tom sorted it out with the host and booking.com and just after midday we were on our way, Tom drove today and smashed it as usual! We got to near where we thought we could get Liptons Seat from and there was Diyaluma Falls, a 230m high waterfall. We found some accommodation and tried to barter down the price with the woman. She said 2750 we wanted to pay 2000. We settled on 2500, still a free dinner! We met Jen and Matthias who said the waterfall was amazing so we decided to get straight up it. A short drive and some free parking later and we were off walking to Diyaluma falls. It was a nice walk up but when we got there it was even better than we thought. A huge drop and we had to get some risky pictures...sorry mum.

There were some higher falls which we’d been told about and apparently were like infinity pools so we climbed up and they were also really nice so we went for a swim with the locals. With the falls all explored we went down to the Tuktuk and this little girl demanded 100 rupees for parking, nice try but it was free. We headed to Koslanda for dinner at this really good little restaurant and then chilled back at the accommodation chatting to Jen and Matthias about our Tuktuk adventures as they had also rented one. Time to hit the hay as a long day was ahead on our journey to Liptons Seat, we set up the iPad on a table between both of our beds and watched a film to fall to sleep to.Read more