Adam's Peak and Yala NP Safari

Another early morning hike.

 John photographing where we were yesterday.

 Clouds rising from the forest.

 With our guide, Sam.

 Rawana Falls.

Our home for the night, deja vue.

 A fish eagle.

A large monitor lizard.

 A green bee eater.

 A male Asian elephant.

 A water buffalo.

 A toque macaque.

Who has the right of way?

 And finally... a leopard!! 

The end to a great day.

Monday, February 12^th.

A group of us were up and set off my 6:00 for our third hike in a row. We got an early start as we had things to do today. We took the bus through the sleeping town to the starting point. Most of the trail up was a cement road that locals use in tuk tuks. We were heading to Adam’s Peak, another big rock hill with great views. We walked up the gentle slope and through some tea plantations. Eventually the hike became quite steep and we climbed about 300 steps to the summit. From there we looked across the valley to Ella Rock, where we were yesterday. On the summit was a Buddha statue and small shrine. We stayed there for a half hour enjoying the early morning light and the great temperature. We walked back down the van and drove to the hotel for our breakfast. We had about an hour to get organized for our drive.

We drove down off the Central Highlands and the temperatures became hotter and more humid. We stopped at a nice restaurant for lunch, but I ate nothing as my stomach is a little off.

Then we continued on to Yala National Park. There were three game drive jeeps waiting for us. They drove us to our campsite for the night. We are ‘glamping’. We have permanent tents with two twin beds under a mosquito net and a proper bathroom attached to the back of our tent. We left our stuff and got back in the jeeps for our afternoon game drive.

We entered the park about 3:00 and drove over the usual bumpy dirt roads. We had to drive through a few large puddles on the road and a stream. We saw a variety of animals and birds. We saw lots of peacocks and the beautiful green bee eater, a couple of large hornbills, and open billed storks among other birds. We saw a couple of wild boars, two large monitor lizards, several solitary male elephants, a number of spotted deer, crocodiles and at long last, a leopard. He had just had a drink in a pond and walked casually across the road in front of us and disappeared into the long grass. He paid no attention us. It was a brief encounter but very special, as this is the first I have seen this year. The game drive people were also excited because they don’t see them very often either, even though this park has a high concentration of leopards, and if they do, they are up trees in the distance.

We returned to the campsite just at dusk as the park closes at 6:00. We had a bit of free time to use the internet and then we were called for dinner. We had a large, long table outside under the stars and they served us soup, bbq’d chicken and pork with rice and cooked veggies. It was wonderful to sit outside enjoying that and listening to the night noises. Then we all broke off to our tents for the night.