Elephants, a bucket list day

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Today, because it was so special, I've included a large number of photos. Hopefully everyone will enjoy them and feel some of the joy we felt being able to do this safari her in Sri Lanka.

Udawalawae National Park was originally created to provide a habitat for animals that were displaced when the Walawae River was dammed. It was created in the early 1970's and is about 300sq km in area. It is a very important habitat for both water birds and Sri Lankan elephants.

In addition to the park there is an elephant transit facility for the rehabilitation of orphaned baby elephants to ultimately release them back into their natural habitat. The baby/young elephants are raised here for five years then returned to the park where they are, presumably, accepted into the herd (to be correct it is actually a "parade of elephants"). One interesting thing is before release they give them a bath in elephant dung to remov all traces of human smell.

Anyway, seeing elephants in the wild wasn't really on my bucket list but after having had the honour of experiencing this it has been added to the list. Preumably because it went on the list during the experience it was contemporaneously ticked off and hence removed.

We got up very early as the safari departed our guest house at 5.30am. Marie and I were awake at 4.00am, might have been the anticipation but most likely just the heat. McVet awake pretty much all night, again could have been excitement but then again his room mate was going through the night three post flu snoring phase which might have been a contributor.

Just the four of us on our truck driven by Samantha, the guest house owner. The trucks are Mahindra or other such pickups with four or six car seats mounted on the tray in stadium format, that is the rows being higher as you go towards the rear.

Drove about ten minutes to the park and after a couple of check in type stops we were off on the dirt tracks, hunting for elephants.

First good omen was Marie spotted a big elephant poo on the side of the track. Thought this was a good sign and they must be close but soon became apparent that these little piles were everywhere and didnt signal an imminent sighting.

Samantha was pretty good at keeping us entertained while the hunt went on, stopping to show us a wide range of native wildlife. All in itself interesting, beautiful and sometimes fascinating but we were after elephants!

Because we were on the back of the truck and Samantha driving whenever he spotted something he would stop, point, then lean out the window and explain to Donna who in turn would relay to us. As assistance, when it came to the bird life, he also had a slightly damp and mouldy, dog eared old picture book with the native flora and fauna of Sri Lanka in it. He would turn to the correct page and hand to Donna telling her "number 6" or "number 37" in tree over there. So we have at least learnt the corresponding numbers of various Sri Lankan birds.

Some of the bird life was fabulous and despite the desire to find elephants it was hard not to be awed by the beauty of the environment and the bird life in particular. Peacocks are everywhere and the colours so bright and vibrant in the subdued tones of the scrub and low bush. We also saw a hornbill flying between trees which was spectacular but unfortunately a bit too fast for our cameras and hence the only evidence is a photo with a smudged dot on the horizon.

After about an hour of cruising around we finally saw a lone old elephant in the bushes, it sauntered away as we approached. Someone was heard to say "I didn't come all this way to see that bag of old bones"!

Another hour or so went by and despite Samantha's best efforts with bird life (no.s 23, 12 and a very rare 45 having a bath) the punters were growing restless. Made a stop and dismounted at a watering hole where some very big crocodiles live, unfortunately for Samantha even they weren't playing by the rules and had set up on a sandbank downriver so they were only just visible and hence not really startling or threatening.

Back in the truck and Samantha got a call from, presumably, one of the other safari drivers telling him of the location of a parade of elephants. Off we went, in search of the elusive elephants.

After a few minutes drive, including a stop to watch a hawk washing itself in a puddle by the trackside, we came across the elephants. Obviously the word was out as there were a number of other trucks in the same place, our Samantha was up for the challenge though, got us in prime position and kept moving with the elephants.

Hard to really do justice to the experience of watching these beautiful animals just going about their business in the wild. They appeared totally at ease, not concerned at all about us being so close and the endless clicking of camera shutters.

There was a parade of about a dozen elephants including a number of young. One really noticeable thing was some of the elephants were very red/orange in colour, this comes from the mud baths they roll in and does make them stand out amongst their grey cousins.

The elephants slowly mooched through the scrub and bush beside the track as we (and the other trucks on the scene) slowly moved along beside them. After a while we came to a small water hole/mud bath that the elephants stopped at. Here some of the larger elephants sprayed muddy water over their backs while the younger ones got into the mud and lay down and rolled around.

In total we followed and watched these elephants for about half a hour, time flew but we felt privileged to be able to do it.

After we moved on from the elephants we saw an interesting sight with a couple of water buffalo in a water hole sitting there with only their heads above the water. Slowly circling them and getting ever closer was a very large crocodile. The crocodile got to within a couple of metres of the water buffalo at which point they obviously decided enoughs enough and stood up in the water and slowly walked towards the crocodile. Interstingly despite being significantly longer than the water buffalo the croc quickly turned tail and fled.

These crocodiles in the park are really quite fearsome animals, some up to five metres long. Sadly while writing this blog entry I've just read of a British bloke taken by one of these crocodiles here in Sri Lanka.

Just before we left the park we came across a lone elephant. Samantha advised this was actually the only mature male we had seen. Once the young males get to twelve years old they are chased from the family unit and live a solitary life, presumably only returning for the odd mating, hence all the groups of elephants are females and young.

Leaving the National Park we returned to the guest house, where Samantha ceased to be a safari driver/guide and became waiter serving us a fabulous breakfast. Given by this stage we had been up for nearly six hours it was very well received.

We then decided to visit the elephant transit centre for their noon elephant feeding.

This was again a very special thing to see. First they feed an amputee elephant that had a prosthetic rear leg then the very small babies. The very small ones are feed with a bottle which has a nozzle on it. The the larger elephants are let into the feeding area in groups of four or five. All are given a drink of milk, it would seem a token drink for the larger elephants and more fore the smaller ones.

Generally the elephants were very well behaved although a few of the mid sized ones, presumably teenagers, tried to cheat and double around for seconds on the milk. The feeding staff seemed to be on to this old trick and soon sorted these ones out and chased them away to make way for ones that had not had a drink.

After viewing the feeding we then travelled,in a van, to Marissa. Generally the trip was uneventful, that is we got there without hitting anything and without being hit. Quite an achievement really as this driver took the passing on blind corners, passing three wide and playing chicken with busses games to a whole new level!

Marissa is a beach town on the south coast so looking forward to a few relaxing days here.











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Photos

The safari truck
Thinking I could do this to the Ranger back home, grandkids would love it!

Award winning photo of hornbill.
The bird is the small dot flowing between the trees.

Red elephant
The red comes from und baths they take.