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Published: January 31st 2016
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Kandy Garrison CemeteryEn route from Kandy we make two stops the first to the Botanical Gardens, before the British arrived these were royal pleasure gardens 60 hectares of palm avenues and fruit bats in many of the trees, there is a fine collection of Orchids and it makes for a pleasant couple of hours. A short drive further we come to Kandy Garrison Cemetery, managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, a fine cemetery a fine memorial to those who died in WW11. The road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya climbs nearly 1400m and as we climb the temperature drops it also winds through jade green tea plantations the home of Ceylon Tea, we make a stop at a Tea factory unusually quiet as they are having a religious day to pray for a good harvest, we are shown around the factory and learn that the finished product equates to only 10% of the total leafs picked.
Our home for tonight is Heidi's home not only is it cooler it is also raining, typical as this place is known as Little England! we wait for it to stop and head off into the centre for a look around, the rain continues and
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Waiting for a Cannon Bal!l we make for the Golf Club founded in 1889, what awaits us is a roaring fire, Sri Lanka in August!!! The only thing to do is order a Gin and Tonic and make our choice of the dinner menu.
The following morning we start the long drive to Yala National Park the road takes us through more tea plantations and slowly descends back to coast getting warmer as we drive, which both Graeme and I appreciate, although Janika seems to relish the cooler climate. We arrive near our night stop a tented camp, and after a phone call we are transported into the camp the drive takes about 5 minutes and we are met by the manager with a cool towel and a coconut milk drink, we are shown to our tent, a bedroom sitting area and en-suite! A walk round camp finds an eating area around a fire, and a further seating area with some comfy bean bags. A walk with a naturist is curtailed early as it rains very heavily, but not before we have seen spotted bee eater's and monkey's. The evening meal is taken under the stars around the campfire but we don't linger too
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Nuwara Eliya Post Office long as we have an early start.
Our main reason for choosing Yala is the opportunity to see a Leopard, we were lucky to see one on our Honeymoon in Kenya, a really splendid animal, we are boosted by the fact that our guide tells us on his last trip he saw 3 leopards! Yala combines a strict nature reserve with a national park, the area is scrub, light forest, grassy plains and brackish lagoons, it is divided into 5 blocks, which importantly has the highest density of leopards 35
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