Day 109 - Horton Plains National Park, World's End, Baker's Falls, Belihul Oya (Sri Lanka)

Day 109 – His

So, we got up at 5 and were in the bus by half past. Not many people were talking. We had been provided with a cup of coffee and a packed breakfast and a packed lunch. Neither of which our young Texan friend wanted so we ended up with 6 packed meals. Quite a lot to put in a day bag and lug around with you all day – but it turned out handy as we had breakfast, lunch and dinner out of the whole lot- though we did end up having to eat more boiled eggs and oranges than are good for you.

We had two walks planned – the first was clearly on everyone’s itinerary and included the little world’s end, the world’s end and the baker falls. The path around was 9 km and it was filled with tourists of all shapes, description and nationalities.

The world’s ends turned out to be cliffs and pretty impressive they were too. One was a couple of hundred meters high and the other was 600 meters high – ish. The view was magnificent and the surrounding countryside beautiful.

The next walk was 16km through the local tea plantations from the mountain tops down into the valley where our next hotel was waiting. Again a beautiful walk with the ground strewn with rose quartz and crystals our guide kept pointing out to us. I picked up a few as we struggled along the precipitous path that descended so quickly our knees were aching by the end of it. It took four hours to complete and by the end of it our young Texan friend was whining at every step. She had been making little moaning sounds about two hours into the walk and by three hours she was in agony. It was pretty hard but no harder than the Himalayan walks we had done previously. Though like everybody I was pretty pleased to see the  tuk tuks and the bus that were waiting to take us to the next hotel.

(Many of the others were even more pleased with the celebratory arrack cocktails provided on the bus!)

Our guide had been apologising about the state of the hotel for most of the day so we weren’t expecting much. But as we drew up the place looked most promising and they served us complimentary tea on the veranda. It wasn’t until we got to the room we realised quite how grotty it was. It is built by the side of a river – which sounds picturesque, and indeed is, but it also means it is damp, mouldy and mosquito infested. The bed smells of mould, the rooms are basic to the extreme and the nicotine stained mosquito net doesn’t bode well for a good night’s sleep. The river rapids literally thunder outside the room and Patti has to shout if she is more than three paces away – ah well we are only here for a night.

 

 

Day 109 – Hers.

Our group has been together for over a week now – and it is very interesting to see how each person’s character has emerged.  The Aussie guy we have mentioned is very playful – full of energy and always up for a laugh. On our walk he would bound up and down extra hills, like a mountain goat.  Rob, the Texan girl and I were sent by another group’s tour guide down a particularly adventurous side path to the foot of Baker’s Falls (I knew that wasn’t the way Deva had meant for us to go.....) – the young Aussie bounded down after us to tell us where the rest of the group was – and then put his head into the stream and shook himself out like some native animal.  The Aussie’s partner is a lovely girl who is 5 ½ months pregnant and still manages to keep up with him most of the time.  She wisely did not attempt the second part of the walk – most of us found it very strenuous – she was able to stretch out across 4 seats of the bus and nap for 3 hours.....  The English medical practice manager is another of the cheerleaders of the group – keeping us laughing with her witty observations and passing sweets around the bus – even to the driver whilst reminding him to keep his eyes on the road.  Another of our group, a 50 year old Aussie woman, has become known as the most accident prone.  She took several tumbles on the walk – the last one injuring her ankle – so that the ‘baby’ of the group (a 23 year old Aussie medical student) got to practice her first aid skills strapping it up.  The ‘English rose’ KPMG  auditor we’ve mentioned before, two thirtyish guys – one Australian who loves cricket and is meeting his girlfriend in Galle and one Irish computer programmer – and a lovely Irish/English woman from Norwich complete the group.  It’s a really nice balance – very jolly – and such a blessing after the curate’s egg of a group we travelled with in India.