Wilpattu National Park

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Before arriving in Sri Lanka the main thing i kept reading was how friendly the locals were and i could not agree more, even the touts are polite!

For our first night in Sri Lanka we would be staying at the Sea Sands Beach Resort in a small town called Negombo, just north of Colombo. The name makes it sound a lot flasher than it is but it suited us just fine and had the added bonus of being right on the beach. Within five minutes of walking down the beach we were approached by a man with a Toque Macaque on a leash who's name was Michael Jackson (the Macaque not the man). Michael instantly ran straight onto Cohan's shoulder and the next minute the man pulled out a Sri Lankan Tiger Python and that ended up around Cohan's neck. It didn't take us long to figure out we would now have to pay the man for showing us these poor animals, so feeling like stupid tourists we handed over a small amount of Rupees and left the gypsy to find his next victim.

The next morning we left early for Wilpattu National Park which is located in the west of Sri Lanka's dry zone. Up until a few years ago the park had been closed due to the civil war, but now days it serves as a top spot to see wild leopards and other big game animals and the best part being it is a lot less crowded than other parks such as Yala.

For our three nights at Wilpattu we had booked to stay at "Wilpattu House", a small family run guest house just a few kilometers from the parks south entrance. I have to say this is by far one of the best places i have ever stayed, it was incredibly basic and there were regular power cuts but Sereno and Kumari who run it really went above and beyond to make our stay truly unforgettable, plus Kumari's cooking is amazing!

The only way to actually get around the park itself is by Jeep which works out to be very expensive, around 150NZD for a full day for two people however luckily the two Slovakian girls who were staying in another room wanted to share a Jeep so that cut down cost a lot.

The Jeep left at about 5.45am and returned just before 7pm. After only a few hours we had already seen the majority of our main target mammals including Asian Elephant, Golden Jackal and Leopard, in fact the only major mammal we had missed was Sloth bear, but I was not at all surprised about that.

As far as birding went it was non stop, we ended up with about 30 species including Sri Lanka Jungle Fowl, Wooly-necked Stork and Malabar Pied Hornbill but the top for me would have to be Lesser Adjutant.

Wilpattu was like no park I had been to, I'm used to the thick forests of South east Asia where Animals are few and far between. perhaps I should do safaris more often...

Our next destination is the ancient fort of Sigiriya.

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