Sitagangula

I struggled to get any sleep last night as there was a symphony of snoring being played to the left of the room...the Aussie guy and the Chinese person that had weirdly taken pictures of us yesterday were snoring away like two pigs having a conversation ensuring there wasn’t a silent second... I did however manage to get some sleep and woke up at 8 for the free breakfast which was very good actually, eggs, toast and woodapple jam. We met Jasmine at breakfast as we invited her to come for an outing in the TukTuk before we needed to check out.

We headed off in the Tuktuk looking for a tree...sounds weird but this was a single tree on top of a round hill in the middle of a tea plantation. Intrigued, we had look on Google maps to find this place and took a hunch from the satellite view. We drove for a few kilometres before turning off the main road and heading up into the middle of nowhere. We winded up and up before spotting this tree! We pretty much abandoned the Tuktuk and set off on foot. It was a cloudy morning in Nuwara Eliya, but as we had climbed we had broken through the cloud and were now totally inappropriately dressed in jeans and jumpers as the sun blazed down upon us. Stripping off as much as we could, we made our way up the tracks until we were just below the tree. We had to then walk though the plantation getting covered in spiders and other creatures. We made it!! It was a full 360° view of the surrounding area which was incredible, and we were the only ones there. We chilled out for a bit until I felt the terrifying urge to go to the toilet! Not a good place for it...must have been Sri Ambaals from the previous day announcing itself. We headed down - a little slow for my liking - and we went straight back to the guesthouse. I took care of my business then we checked out as we were heading to Nallathanniya, the town at the base of Adams Peak.

We grabbed some fuel on the way out of Nuwara Eliya, but we pulled up and the pump guy immediately started putting in the expensive fuel! Livid we paid him and said that in the future he should ask - in all honesty the difference was only about £0.30 so we got over this pretty quick. Tom was driving the first stint on the very windy roads out of town. After a couple of hours I took over after we stopped at this Spanish looking church. When we pulled over we saw the train we had been on a few days earlier pass by beneath us. We continued onwards with me now driving round the lake and up towards Adams peak. The town where you stay to climb the peak is at the end of the line, in all senses of the phrase.

When we got there it was pretty much deserted and we needed somewhere to park. The guy running the guesthouse was pretty much the most unhelpful guy we’d met so far, so we just left the tuktuk behind the police post and okayed it with the police...official enough for us. We checked in, and grabbed some Kottu from the place next door. This was the cheapest we’d found it at just 150 rupees (£0.60) and it was massive. The whole town had a power cut whilst we were out, again confirming this was the end of the line. We scouted out the start of the trail to Adams peak and Tom was stunned when it was signposted as the trail for the “Holy Buddha Footprint” and exclaimed some level of shock not believing that people make the pilgrimage from all over the world to the top of his mountain for a footprint. We both laughed about how ridiculous that actually sounds then checked out a sweet shop for some snacks for the climb. Eventually the power came back on and we headed to bed super early with a film as it was a 2am alarm to get ready to start the climb.Read more