March 25, 2025
Rest day at Kataragama/Yala National Park
Dinners the past 2 nights! And Yala National Park
Dinner 1 was a mixed fried rice and yup we had seafood in it – not much as well as port sausage and chicken. The seafood was very tough chopped up prawns with their shells still on and we can only guess that dried fish – which, despite the smell while we ride, wasn't half bad! Can't say I would eat that dried fish as is by itself but in a curry or fried rice it is ok. 24 hours later we haven't got sick!
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And dinner 2 is takeaway – Neil is going to a place that has a buffet and I have requested the eggplant curry and beans on plain rice.
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So Tuesday morning we got up at 4.30am for our 5.30am pickup. It is just us going on the tour along with a gazillion other safari vehicles! (there are about 450 of these safari vehicles registered to go into the park and we think we encountered all of them)
It is still dark and when we went to get in I decide to fall off the concrete driveway edge and land very heavily on my left ankle and collapsed in a heap. It was about a 40cm drop and I fell heavily that it felt like I had broken my ankle. It swelled up immediately. But gosh the pain was excruciating at first and I looked at Neil and just mouthed the “f” word to him – yip I was mindful that there were Sri lankan men around and it would be unlady like of me to be cursing and swearing in English (as I am sure they would know that sort of English!) anyway I was quite proud of my verbal self control! Neil mentioned that maybe it wasn't a good idea for us to go on the tour and I could hear in the drivers voice the disappointment of not working today, but I got up and walked on it and said it is ok it is not broken as I sort of could weight bear, lets go! I really didn't want to let the driver down as they rely on this as the income. So I scramble up and that was ok to do. Lucky this is a sit in the truck tour and no walking. The seats are soft and padded and despite the pain in my left ankle I was happy to be going.
In hindsight there are a few prerequisites for this tour – ladies and damn good holding bra or girdle because it is a real tit wobbler. You spend the entire 5 hours bouncing and a jiggling and a rockin’ and a rollin'. You also need a damn good camera as there is alot of zooming in and comments “like where is it!” 360 vision helps as you don't want to miss any animal. A hat, not for sun protection but more hair protection from all the dust as it just settles everywhere and you can feel it. Keep you mouth closed at all times as the dust ends up in there. Eye protection as the dust gets in there as well! And last but not least – the most important of all – patience. Unlike Neil I possess alot in situations like this – Neil is like the vehicle stops to patiently look and Neil is then nup lets move on within 20 seconds. Fortunately the driver couldn't understand that part of English!
I enjoyed the tour and it was nice just looking at the scenery, even though it was the same sort of scenery for 5 hours – I think outback cycling and spending hours upon hours, days upon days, weeks upon weeks, months upon months (yeah you get it!) just seeing the same sort out scenery has made us immune to the mundane but we have trained ourselves to look more closely at the natural environment and we see alot more than most.
Here is a few snaps from the start
The call went out that someone had spotted a leopard. Leopard sightings are not common and are highly valued but we never had high expectations to spot one as they are very rare in numbers in the park. Alas our driver drove towards a set of high rocks and I have to say half of Sri Lanka had beat us to it as you can see from the photos above!
What I found interesting while waiting for the back log to move, at this point we thought that yeah we aren't going to see it as by the time we get there the leopard would have changed its spots! So what is interesting is watching the surrounding vehicles and there reactions and we can see that we are all lined up single file on clearly something that is a very narrow single track – but we are in Sri Lanka and on Sri Lankans can turn this single track into a double lane road!
Apparently there is a loop that goes around this rock but it is blocked so those that had seen it had to turn around and come back – OMG the chaos! However us being the eagle eye naturalists we are spot that peacock high in the tree but no one was interested in that, we then spotted 2 beautiful birds right smack in front of us
I think that is their name as it was hard to understand the driver!
I like to look at everyone in their vehicles and their drivers and yes there is a bit of snobbery – some in old safari trucks like ours, some in luxurious 4WD utes like Leanne and Russells with the seating perched on top of the tray, some in fully enclosed 4WD utes and so the airconditioner is on and there is no dust getting in their eyes and mouths (they will still have the jiggling and wiggling!) and the people are all looking nice and clean for first thing in the morning and all have their safari type clothing on that is all beige or white in colour! I would have loved to have seen the shades of beige and white at the end of their tour. But what really took the cake of ostentatiousness is this camera -not the size but the camouflage aspect to it!
I am thinking that the leopard can see him maybe not the camera but him in that big vehicle along with the 100 other vehicles all lined up in plain view with no camouflage!
Alas it was not to be for us to see this leopard but here is a photo just in case you can see it – let me know if you do. Apparently it is under that round boulder!
We continue on and there is plenty of birdlife
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https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Egret/overview
Grey one looks like a grey heron.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/4954-Ardea-cinerea
3 days ago
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey-headed_fish_eagle
3 days ago
Finally we see an elephant just after seeing the eagle. It was across the lake from us but still quite visible.
From here we meandered through the park and by now it was 9 o'clock and we weren't encountering many of the other safari vehicles so it was nice. Our turn around point was at the coastline. Here we stopped for a toilet break but the queue was long for the ladies so I passed and held on! Not sure on the toilet facilities and where the sewage was going but there was alot of small rivers going out to the sea!
Here is the vehicle we were in
Not sure where we were heading to after this but I suspect the driver wanted to go back to the big rock to see if we could spot the leopard. On our way there was 2 vehicles pulled over – which means something and sure enough there was an elephant in the bush. We pulled up and turned the engine off and we watched. Next minute she comes out and crosses the road right in front of us! I have a great video to share but the internet is too slow to upload to YouTube. Hopefully once we are back on the highway I will be able to upload it onto tomorrows blog.
But wait there is more! Unbeknownst (gotta love that word aye Dad) to anyone there was a little bubba on our right hiding behind the bushes!
It was hard to see the little one as it stuck quite close to its mumma. So all up we saw about 4 elephant occassions. One was tucked in the jungle right next to the road grazing on bushes and wouldn't come out so all you could see was this trunk breaking branches and eating the leaves.
Going back to the rock we go through thick bush and we saw lots of deer
Some packs were small and some about 10 of them. Very skittish and would take off if you stopped to take a photo of them. There are also plenty of water buffalo and their horns are very impressive, unlike our roadside ones which are farmed to make buffalo curd their horns have been snipped.
Got to the rock and nope no leopard. The driver is a little disappointed and we work out later that to the driver us not seeing a leopard is sort of a failure on their behalf. There is just no way we could make him understand that we are not upset about not seeing a leopard and that we knew the odds were very low and we really had no expectations of seeing one but we were ecstatic about seeing the elephant crossing in front of us and all the wildlife we saw!
We get back to our accommodation and pay the 12000 rupees to the driver and try to tell him again we had tremendous time out there.
Tidbits for Yala NP
1. Cost us 21500 ruppes which is $115 AUS
2. The NP is still in its natural state, with the exception of the toilets at the coastline and the rough, potholed, deep watercourses across the dirt road, very little has been done to change the park. Which is great in a way. So there are no viewing platforms, or safe walking platforms through wetlands etc.
3. You stay in the vehicle the whole time – perfect if you are like me and have sprained your ankle!
4. There are numerous agency (generally done through your accommodation or online) that will book you a vehicle based on how much you want to spend.
5. Can go half day or full day (ours was half day) but 5 hours bouncing around is enough for even us adventurous people!
Back in the room I assess my ankle and it is swollen (looks like your leg Dad!). It doesn't hurt and there is a little bit of bruising. We get a bandage from the pharmacy – yeah I didn't have one in my little first aid kit of drugs. This is the first tour I haven't carried one as I always do for snake bites in fact I carry 2 big ones just for that!
Spent the rest of the afternoon with my foot resting and gingerly putting weight on it. Thinking we are not quite sure how I am going to feel cycling but I can't rotate the ankle at all and can barely point and flex the toes. But it is not painful to put weight on the ball of my foot which is my usual position for cycling. So I think I will be able to cycle but to be on the safe side we decide to stay another day. Unfortunately not in this place so we book another place a few kilometers out of town and I am confident I can cycle that 4 kilometers!
Wednesday 25 March – recovery day or rest day 2
I wake this morning and see the swelling hasn't really gone down but I can definitely walk around with a limp. I can wiggle my toes alot more and feel confident with another days rest I should be able to cycle. I am not going to use my cleated sandals as I can't rotate the ankle and to unclip you have to twist the ankle out a bit, so I will use my normal tevas.
Riding over here to our accommodation I spot this bicycle/shop on wheels?
Not sure where you sit but I don't think it is to be ridden but more to be pushed along with whatever goes in the big corrugated shed at the back!
So riding over here was good, like I thought no pressure on the ankle when I pedal, but it can get a little tricky when I stop then restart again.
The accommodation is probably used more my the Sri Lankan population rather than the foreigners but the owner at the Sun Shine Residence rang them for us explaining what had happened and they were fine to accommodate us.
I tell you this owner at Sun Shine Residence was just fantastic and so helpful. He spoke very good English and is an ex-paratrooper in the Army and loved to stop and chat. We asked him lots of questions about Sri Lanka and here is what we found:
1. Education up to uni is free
2. Hospital and medical is free
3. The pay council rates and garbage is collected 3 times a week (not sure if that is the same in other areas)
4. School hours are 5 days a week 7.45am to 1.45am. They all where white uniforms which are paid for by the government. They get 3 uniform sets a year. All books and stationary are paid for by the government. A bit better than Aus and NZ as uniforms and stationary are not paid for by the government! Sri Lanka beats us there.
5. There are town water treatment facilities (we passed one this morning)
So here is a look at our accommodation which Neil is calling the princess room – you will see why when you see the colour of the bathroom
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This is probably what our accommodation will be like from now on. There are alot of accommodation places here in Kataragama due to the pilgrimage that generally occurs here in August I think – they start walking from the North in July and come to here andthe festival I think (don't quote me!) may go for a month?
We are right next to a lake/lily pond/jungle so we expect mossies and so we have put up the mossie net!
Tomorrow we continue on the elephant highway and hope to see more elephants along the way as we are passing through the north zones of Yala NP – the road goes between zone 3 and 5 and the frequency of seeing elephants crossing is high! I shall be keeping my eyes and ears open tomorrow.
It is 42km to Buttala and we will reassess my ankle there to see if we go a little further (20km) to Monaragala.
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Wow an epic adventure on safari & in a true safari vehicle as well 😉
Great to see all the wildlife, must’ve been amazing seeing it all in the real, especially the elephants.
Take care with your ankle, hope it gets better soon ❤️
3 days ago