A well deserved rest at Trincomalee!

April 2, 2025

So here is a photographic with captions explanation of our rest day here in Trincomalee. We had a very relaxing morning and headed out in the afternoon.

Last nights dinner at the vegetarian place. The large roti is filled with dahl and lovely to eat, initially hot and spicy but now we don't seem to worry about it now - as we don't have the 30 minute lip burning like we did when we first came here!

Neil enjoying it! Tonight we will have a change to back rice as since eating at these spicy vegetarian dahl places (without going into too much detail about our bowel movements, especially Neils!) whew our poor butts need a rest!!!

We rode 4km to Fort Frederick ...

The first part is flat and still a functioning military base so I didn't take photos and then you go up a real munter of a sootie grunter of a hill (15% at least). We rode it ok but please take note of Neils dry shirt at the bottom of the hill.

At the top of the hill you pay to enter - again foreigners pay more then locals - we paid 3600 rupee.

especially deer. As well as some souvenirs stalls (bought a bicycle keyring - I just couldn't help it for 100 rupees!) up to the temple. Didn't go in so came back to the view point and got a better view of the temple from there

Now look at Neils shirt - the backpack hasn't even been on the back - it was just hot and sticky. Even my shirt was saturated and sweat was just pouring off us!

The view from the look out - to the right is the Indian Ocean

Back down past the ticketing office we come across the old water tank

within the inside of these walls were a few dark and dingy rooms

And the shell storage - I don't wanna point out the obvious with the shell storage being below the level of the cannon (all cannons and military paraphenalia have been removed from this part of the Fort) but clearly back in World War 2 physics, productivity and womens input wasn't a thing!!!

However this Bastion gave sensational views of the harbour and Back Bay and the city center of Trincomalee

You can see in the background Trincomalee Harbour which according to Google is the 3rd largest natural harbour in the world. (Sydney is the largest natural harbour). It covers 5261 hectares of land and holds 1630 hectares of water. Hard to see all the habour in one go as there is a series of inlets that block each other but from what we can gather certain points in the harbour are for certain things!

Back Bay with Trincomalee city center in the background

Back Bay with a few various fishing boats

More wildlife in there - heaps of large Frangipani trees

This time riding along the road that runs alongside part of the harbour - you can see some naval boats which I think maybe linked to a naval museum close by.

We think this might be the cemet depot in the harbour. At one point yesterday, as we were circumnavigating this harbour, we had heaps and heaps of petrol trucks lined up alongside the road and we assume the storage of fuel brought in from ships were in that part of the harbour.

to the right of the naval ships is the 2nd entrance to the harbour. The main one is behind that and around the corner!

Tomorrow is a short day to Pulmoddi as we managed to get accommodation there - our most expensive yet! In fact for the 3 remaining nights getting to Jaffna we have some higher prices for accommodation than what we normally pay but accommodation in the northern part of Sri Lanka is either (in AUD) $40+ per night or $150+ per night there is nothing cheaper or in between!

On a side note, we are off the main highway tomorrow so I not quite sure what our internet reception will be like so there maybe no blog. Fingers crossed it is ok to load!

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