Day 5 - Road Trip Sri Lanka - Mili's Blog

Maduru Oya Safari & Dam > Mahiyanganaya/Wedda > Dunhinda falls > Ella

As agreed with the safari driver came to pick us up early morning about 6am. There is about half an hour drive to the wild park from the circuit bungalow. 

We entered the park about 7 am. We also needed to get a guide from the park to make sure we don’t get lost. We were the only safari jeep entered in the morning. We started to seen lot of birds initially. Maduru Oya national park is truly naturally beautiful place. It’s is not commercialised at all compare to other wild life parks in Sri Lanka. But according to the driver we have come to see animals in the wrong season. Because they had quite lot of rain over the past month. Our Safari driver tried really hard to find some elephants & some other animals but unfortunately we couldn’t. . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maduru_Oya_National_Park

After hour or so we gave up. In the meantime, we seen some deers, lots of birds & of course plenty of peacocks. After that we started our journey towards to the Maduru Oya Dam. It was about another half an hour drive away from the park. Maduru Oya dam is a truly marvel project. The dam measures 1,090 m in length, 41 m in height, and creates the Maduru Oya Reservoir. The reservoir has a catchment area of 453 km2 and a storage capacity of 596,000,000 cubic metres. This was built with Canadian Gov. You wouldn’t believe, There is an ancient sluice gate still can be seen. This ancient sluice gate emerged when arrangements being made to construct a new sluice gate during 1981 for the southern bank of Maduru Oya reservoir. The king who responsible for the construction of this sluice gate unknown. According to greater chronicals King Mahasen (273 A.C) built this (Mahadaragalla)Tank. King Vijayabahu 1 & King Parakramabahu 1 repaired later respectively. As the time passed the name became as Maduru Oya. Further study conducted in USA using data & samples collected from this site they believe this sluice gate is dates back to first century B.C.

The new dam itself is massive. The reservoir is full because of last few months rain. Truly beautiful marvel.

Started Journey to Mahiyanganaya

After that we came back to our circuit bungalow about 10am. Lovely breakfast again, one of famous combination in Sri Lanka Dhal curry & fresh bread. After enjoying the breakfast we left the bungalow about 1130 to head off to Mahiyanganaya. The route from Maduru Oya to Mahiyanganaya one of the beautiful routes I even seen. Such rural but it really show how green is Sri Lanka & how un touched this area. Roads are also good. In that route we were passing few more reservoirs.

Dambane Weddas
Next stop was to see Dambane Weddas, the self-identified native communities. We visited that village. That was my first ever visit to this place. There is a new museum in place which we really enjoyed. It had all the details & history. Worth going there. Spent about hour or so there & we started the journey towards to the hill country.

Dunhinda Falls
Next stop is Dunhinda Water Fall. According to the google the ticket gates closed at 0500 pm. Thanks to our driver Nuwan after pressing some more gas on the paddle so we managed to get there just 5 minute passed, ticket counters were closed but the gates are open. So we just sneaked through. From the ticket counter to the Dunhinda falls is a long walk. Specially because its not flat roads, lot of steps & rock steps through the woods. I think it was about an 45min walk to the falls. It was more sort of walk from a top of a mountain to the bottom through the woods. You basically walk to the near to the bottom of the fall. After watching & coming back was difficult because you come way up again on the mountain. It was getting dark too. Infact after about 20 minutes it was pitch dark. I think the time was about 0615pm. There are some lighting at some points on the track but not everywhere. We had to use mobile flash to navigate. You wouldn’t believe , my 8 year old little one did this walk with us. Also my mum (65), uncle (70), aunty & sister in laws family (they are young) managed to do that. Poor brother in law was carrying their 4 year old all the way! My uncle was bit of struggling when we come back because of the dark & steps. But he managed too. After all we managed to come out from the woods about 0700pm. That was a good hike...sort of.

After that we started our journey to out next accommodation. Today was a very long day & that was expected but we managed to cover the things we planned. After another about an hour drive, we reached Ella Town. Our accommodation was further away from Ella town, Pepper Hill Cottages. We had booked 03 chalets there. They also had their own restaurant. Our chef at Maduru Oya Bangalow prepared us lunch packets for all of us which we haven’t had a chance to eat it. We use those as the lunch/dinner at Pepper hill Restaurant. There was an issue. 3rd challet has a bathromm share which was allocated to my mum, in law's mum, aunty & uncle, they were not happy to share. The thing we didnt know that they will have to share so nobody wasn't expecting this. But there are no other options availble because they have only those chalets. After few discussion they agreed to stay in that chalet. phew.. massive panic. Finally we all went to bed.