This was the beginning half of our 2 long week trip covering both the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. I have decided to split the trip into two posts, so that each one can contain the majority or the photos and videos taken. Hopefully this means you can get the full amount and be inspired to visit both!
Sadly, we had only planned to be in Sri Lanka for 7 days, and a lot of our time was taken up by driving across the country. Once again, we rented our own hire car to make life easier (Although there was some hassle picking it up, when we arrived). One week in Sri Lanka was nowhere near enough time, I could have happily spent several weeks in this beautiful country. It had iconic landscapes overflowing with culture and the friendliest locals I have ever met!
Our first stop in Sri Lanka was Sinharaja Rainforest. The only rainforest in the entire country. This means that the wildlife here was completely different to elsewhere in the country, the habitat is very wet, lowland forest but home to some very specialised animals. Our main aim here was to see the Sri Lankan Green Pit Viper. We were also pleased to see a hump nosed lizard, purple faced langurs, giant squirrels as well as dozens of kangaroo lizards. Here we were blessed with an amazing local guide, who although he did not speak much English, was extremely knowledgeable about the surrounding landscape. He searched far and wide to find us as much as possible on our short visit. Here, our choice of accommodation was, Sinharaja Forest Edge Resort. They were extremely accommodating (Especially as we arrived at 3am local time). The food here was amazing and it was so close to the forest that we had many animal residents passing by the restaurant throughout the day.
From Sinharaja, we travelled north. A 7 hour drive, ended in the area of Sigiriya, home to the legendary "Lion's Rock". Local advice from our accommodation manager, told us that there was another large rock fortress known as Pidurangula nearby. This was less visited by tourists than Sigiriya Rock fortress itself, although slightly more challenging to scale. The view of Sigiriya from here was absolutely breath taking and well worth the climb. We potentially had time to climb both in one day, but decided our first view was good enough.
I struggled my way to the top, with the help of our friendly local guide (Dog) who we nicknamed Simba. Simba was the local dog of the Lions' Rock area, I was pleased to see he had been neutered. In Sri Lanka, stray dogs fill each and every street, never before have I seen such a multitude of rejected pets. This meant that when we had found Simba, he was clearly being looked after by someome, a pleasant surprise.
From Sigiriya we had a short journey across to the West in search of Wilpattu National Park. We stayed with Wild Wadi Wilpattu, and they were very helpful for our entire visit. This however was the most expensive part of our trip. We booked onto a half day and a full day safari and were blown away with the results.
Our first leopard sighting, although surrounded by other vehicles was a very tense experience, we witnessed a leopard making its way across the open plain with two jackals hot on its heels. Perhaps they were protecting some young? or maybe even a kill? Who knows. All we know is, they were definitely not happy with the leopard being that close....
We managed to spot 4 Leopards, across the day and a half. 2 of the sightings (3 leopards in total) were witnessed with no other trucks around. There are two entrances to Wilpattu and we were lucky enough to be near the quieter entrance. Wilpattu has restrictions on the amount of vehicles in the park at any one time, so unlike Yala is never crawling with safari trucks. This (in my opinion) makes the experience that much more personal. And one I will never forget. As well as leopards, we were lucky enough to see: Elephants, Gray Langurs, Serpent Eagles, Owls, mongoose, jackals and a variety or birds...
We spotted elephants at sunset every night as we left the park, which was beautiful, but we also managed to get a lovely view of a lone elephant who was very camera shy. Here are some of the images taken at Wilpattu National Park....We hope to be back soon in search of the elusive Sloth Bear.