Haggala Gardens

Next stop was Haggala Gardens. Parking was a challenge…. Obviously the park was full!

The gardens were as beautiful as I remembered. We wondered along taking lots of pictures and posing (mainly because that gave us the excuse us to stop walking and hurting). We giggled about our soggy ordeal on Horton Plains and generally relived the entire thing again…. Giggling a lot this time !

We went to the rose garden, the hot houses and walked through a bit of the park while I coaxed Hyacinth and Anton to exhibit lovey dovey poses to be captured on camera for posterity.

Janani’s Pony Ride

Janani had her pony ride just outside the garden gates. The pony minder was a nice guy who talked to her all the way through the ride because despite her clamour to have the ride, she became quite nervous when actually sitting atop of the pony!

Sita Eliya

We then stopped at Sita Eliya and visited the temple where the Monkey General is supposed to have placed his foot. The temple is a very colourful and vibrant one located over a rushing stream which seemed pretty small after yesterday’s experiences!

Visiting the Bunnies

We started off by visiting Boys Town and having a look at the rabbits. The boy there was really sweet and allowed us to pet the rabbits and even hold a couple of them. He seemed to know a lot about rabbits too and Janani and I spent a happy quarter of an hour visiting with the rabbits.

What shall we do today?

We decided to visit Hakgala Gardens after our excitement yesterday. Hyacinth and I walked like two very fragile old ladies, grimacing with every sudden movement. Huh! Shows how fit the two of us are! Every muscle hurt! Every step hurt!

Back to Highlands

All too soon it was time to find our way back to our vehicle and what a loooooooong walk that proved to be. We had another view from a ‘mini world’s end? And then wound our way back till we found ourselves on the open grasslands leading to the entrance of Horton Plains. We had walked 9 kilometers first in the broiling hot sun and then in the pouring rain. Our teeth were chattering and our wobbly legs were refusing to carry us any further. It had taken us six hours to do the trek.

We went to the little kade near the car park and had some hot coffee (which was horrid!!!) Janani had a change of clothes and we bundled back into the vehicle, turned on the heater and drove back to Highlands to hot dinner, hot baths and bed!

World’s End

World’s end was absolutely stunning!!! For me it was well worth the walk. We were all happy with our own little Worlds End experience. Janani and Hyacinth wanted to see the drop cloaked in white cloud, while Anton and I wanted the mists to part and to actually see the world spread out below us.

When we reached the place it was covered in mist… that kept Hy and Janani happy. We sat awhile to catch our breath and have a few newspaper smothered peanuts and some water and the mists melted away leaving a breathtaking view below us. I was ecstatic!

Unofficial Opening of a Bridge on Horton Plains

At the time though we didn’t appreciate it… we ‘opened’ a new bridge that had been erected across a broad water way through which we would probably have had to wade in thigh high water. The problem was that the bridge was almost at shoulder height but didn’t have any steps leading up onto it. Resourceful as usual Anton had found a plank which he placed against the side of the bridge and held it in place while each of us ran up the gangplank using his shoulders to keep our balance. He hoisted himself up by taking a swinging leap up, hooking his legs onto the edge of the bridge and then hauling himself up. On the other side of the bridge we sat down and then jumped down into the mire. Phew! What an adventure…… certainly beats the corporate outbound training thingies.

Leopards!! In Sri Lanka??? On Horton Plains????? Nah!

When we came to the forest area though I think Hyacinth rather lost her nerve. Her husband had walked on out of sight and Janani and I were lagging behind chatting away even stopping now and again to admire our surroundings. She had noticed that we had not passed another single soul and that we were now surrounded on either side by thick forest. The sky was overcast and everything looked dark and gloomy the jungle seemed to encroach onto the tiny path making us four humans feel so unsafe. Wanting us to hurry through the forest she used the word ‘leopard’ to Janani and that was the end of the cool control. Janani’s eyes opened wide, her mouth opened even wider and she burst into loud and vociferous tears. Her mom had to practically drag her long stumbling over the rocky uneven forest path. Janani ceased to look for firm footing and instead of skipping lightly became a heavy burden to be dragged along howling at the top of her lungs. Her fond daddy heard her and came back, picked her up in his arms. But the rocky uneven road which was a swirling gushing rapid was too much for him. Down he fell to his knees and she fell on top of him. Meanwhile Hyacinth and I had our arms wrapped tight around each others’ waists while we felt our way through the water.

A Soggy Adventure on Hortain Plains

The far-thinking mom Hyacinth had brought a raincoat for Janani. She was unceremoniously bundled into it while the rest of us decided to brave the ice cold rain and continue our walk to World’s End. Actually there was no choice about continuing, we had to go forward on a downhill track to World’s End (the smarter choice… which we being the smart folk we are ,took), or climb relentlessly uphill back the way we came (which was a no no).

So we pushed onwards in the pouring rain Hyacinth and I trying to share one umbrella to keep our handbags dry, our ID’s, phones and cameras being the most important things to safeguard. Finally I covered my camera and phone in Janani’s raincoat cover, gave my handbag and umbrella to Hyacinth and we kept walking. Hyacinth’s handbag was a huge ‘pan malla’ kind of thing and soaked up lots of rain like a sponge and probably weighted a ton! Poor Hyacinth looked like a desperado with our two handbags slung crosswise across her chest, carrying the umbrella and practically staggering along. She did have a large smile on her face though J Janani meanwhile happily splashed into all the puddles she could find.

We laughed at our original efforts to keep our shoes dry because pretty soon the stony little pathway turned into a gushing river with a strong enough current to unsettle us. Protecting our shoes was the least of our thoughts while we struggled knee high in water. The water was muddy too and we soon couldn’t see the pathway, just a rushing gurgling sucking rush of water which could have easily swept Janani (and all of us too) off our feet. Soon it became a battle to hang on to the rocks and grasses on the pathside and carefully ‘feel’ our way through the ‘rapids’. Anton and Janani both fell along the way and so did Hyacinth. Luckily no bones were broken. When crossing a stream with just a branch to use as a stepping stone, Hyacinth preferred to sit on the muddy stream bank and try to wade across… the stream was too deep though and she was compelled to climb on the branch and get across to the other side.

We felt that we had been battling through the rapids for hours and were cold and shivery and tired and hungry! We sat on some rocks and delved into our bags for our biscuits and guess what????? They were not in polythene packs anymore! They were in soggy newspaper.. yucks!! How unappetizing! None of us wanted them. We did eat some of the nuts though, peeling way the soggy newspaper off them. I can’t imagine that we actually did that when I think back!

Janani was such a good little sport. She was quite happy with the lovely world (albeit rather wet world) around her, singing her Barbie songs despite the cold and the long walk. She quite enjoyed herself and even the rocky pathway became an adventure where she had to find the best path and the places that didn’t seem to be too deep and to maintain her footing. She happily skipped from stone to stone her tiny little hand clasped in mine. The couple of times she lost her footing didn’t make her cry as I feared it would. She just held on and looked carefully for the next safe secure rock on which to place her foot.

We walked through more mountains, and through forest land. Through open prairies through which gushed little steams and where little lakes were now swollen with rain water. We walked through rocky terrain where the path was still rocky and hewn into pink streaky rock and then finally we came to World’s End!

Baker’s Falls

Anton, being a veteran guide decided that it would be best if we made our way down to Bakers Falls first and then proceeded to World’s end, so that the walk would be downhill all the way. We met several people on their way back… UPHILL!! Most of them were almost crawling and looked so totally exhausted!

The sun was shining very brightly indeed when we set off and after a while we removed our jerseys and tied them around our waists. Fortunately I had taken my umbrella with me……. unfortunately, Hyacinth didn’t bring hers along, so we tried to shade ourselves from the burning hot sun as best we could and trudged along singing songs while we went, stopping occasionally to look around the beautiful hills, surrounded by mist, breath in the crisp cool mountain air and munch on lemon puffs, chocolate and jumbo peanuts.

Anton found our pace way too slow for him, so he marched along ahead of us, fortunately carrying the heavy water bottles with him. He would find a convenient rock to rest on until we caught up with him singing all kinds of pel kavi and hymns for us to join in. All in all, we made a very merry bunch indeed.

After about an hour of trekking, Janani gave a shout of alarm and pointed behind us….on turning around, we saw the mist swirling down off the mountain tops threatening to smother us in its white coldness.

Promptly we donned our jerseys again and kept walking until we came to the steep descent to Baker’s Fall. Luckily trees have been grown at hands reach down to the water fall. The descent is very steep indeed and we were all panting heavily by the time we reached the ramp leading to the observation point near the water fall. I got a picture of Hyacinth nearly hurtling downward, managing to maintain her balance by clutching at nearby tree trunks.

The water fall was in full volume and looked absolutely stunning!!!!

I just managed to get two photographs near the waterfall when the swirling mist broke into huge drops of rain which became a steady downpour in 2 minutes flat!

A Scenic Drive to Horton Plains

We had decided to visit Horton Plains on our first day in Nuwara Eliya, so taking our breakfast of delicious chicken curry, seeni-sambol and bread we started our drive past a beautiful lake. We stopped to take a few pictures and were soon making friends with two dogs.. or at least Anton and I were making friends with the two dogs, while Hyacinth and Janani yelled at us to make them go away. We then drove on to a forest lodge overlooking the lake where we sat and had our breakfast. All the leftovers were handfed to the two dogs who followed the vehicle to the forest lodge.

The drive to the plains is an absolutely long and beautiful one… the road (admittedly in rather a bad state of repair) winds past the Ambewella Farm and up on to the plains round hairpin bends. The steep inclines left us gasping at the sheer beauty of the place, and a little bit of fear too in case Anton lost control of the vehicle and sent us down the precipice!

We reached the plains and found a lot of environmental protection laws in place. We were not permitted to carry any plastic with us on the trek to see the World’s End and Bakers Fall. They were so strict that they made us break open our packs of biscuits and peanuts and other snacks. They gave us newspaper in which to wrap our snacks up in and they thoroughly checked each bag we carried to make sure that no plastic bags or packing was carried in. Unfortunately they seemed to permit plastic bottles, and to my dismay I saw some plastic bottles dropped along the way on the plains.

Nuwara Eliya here we come!

On the long weekend in April (11^th to the 14^th), Hyacinth invited me to join her family on a trip to Nuwara Eliya. Of course I was more than happy to!

So we set off happily on Friday morning looking forward to our long weekend trip to the hill country. Janani kept bouncing up and down excitedly in her seat thrilled to bits with everything she saw. We giggled and laughed all the way to Nuwara Eliya.

We stopped on the way to visit an old elephant with probably the longest tusks in Sri Lanka. I was rather sad because the poor elephant looked gaunt, underfed, ill and unhappy.

We had a picnic lunch on the roadside. Anton put a mat on the grass for the three ladies while he sat on the baby chair. When we got up I found that I had parked my cream clad butt on vegetable matter making a nice brown patch to match my cream trouser yuck!!!!

We were to stay at the beautiful bungalow ‘Highlands’ lent to us by Dinush. What a welcome sight it was after a long drive from Colombo to chilly Nuwara Eliya! The house was a lovely old fashioned one with beautiful antique furniture and, we discovered to our pleasure the next morning, with a well tended garden in full bloom!