Udawalawe National Park and the City of Gems
Trip Start
Aug 12, 2011
1
9
Trip End
Aug 22, 2011
What I did
Kalutara, Sri Lanka
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Eventually we made it Udawalawe a national park created after the construction of the huge reservoir on the Walawe River. The park is a great place to see wild elephants and it is thought that about 250 of them reside there. As we drove alongside the reservoir I spotted sea eagles and other water birds. Once with in the park the road ran alongside an electric wire and there to my amazement we spotted four or five elephants Young boys were selling small hands of bananas so my guess was that people feed them.
We waited while our driver went into the office to fill out all the relevant paper work and to find us both a driver and a tracker. Our Land Rover was a beaten up old thing with a passenger door that wouldn’t shut. The good thing was we had enough room at the back to stand up which gave us a great if rather uncomfortable view.
Almost immediately we came across a small herd of elephants- a matriarch with some other females and young. You could see the teeth of one of the younger elephants that I mistakenly thought was a tusk growing. Apparently they have six sets of teeth in their life! We spotted some bright green parakeets squawking overhead and then another small herd. The babies here were even younger and one particularly looked only a year old. I remembered back to Pinnewala and thought that this was so much better seeing these majestic animals where they should be free and in the wild. It was great to see one of the younger calves still feeding from its mother. We watched as they pulled grass up from the ground and shook all the dust from it until they deemed it fit to eat.
We spotted lots of waterfowl and colourful Rollers and Bee-eaters and even a Peacock up a tree. I still cannot get my head around the fact that Peacocks are wild here having seen them so many times in country parks at home. We also spotted quite a few crocodiles on the banks of the waterholes some with their mouths wide open to cool themselves down. A Brahminy Kite perched above us on a dead tree unmistakable with its white head and viscous looking yellow beak. Grey Herons patrolled the muddy banks and Cormorants spread their wings to dry after a swim. There were lots of Great White Egrets and Black-winged Stilts here too, fishing for food in the shallows. We also spotted a Grey-headed Fish Eagle on the lookout for a meal. The dead teak trees, remains of the teak plantation that used to be here made wonderful perches for the birds. It also made for an unusual landscape. There were also large groups of Painted Stork as well as numerous Kingfishers.
There were many Water Buffalo in the park some of these have bred with the domestic cattle here, so it was difficult to see which were the wild one. The guide said he could only tell because they were much more timid than the domesticated ones. We did see a Land Monitor which made a nice change to the numerous amounts of Water Monitor we had spotted throughout the holiday.
The park reminded me very much of African Savannah and I kept thinking we would see lion any minute. Unfortunately the elusive leopard that does live here – remained elusive. We spotted plenty of their prey – the Axis Deer.
On the way out as the weather got increasingly hotter we spotted a young elephant laying down under a tree in the shade – very sensible I thought. He looked so sweet laying there, more like a huge dog than an elephant.
On the way back we stopped at Ratnapura the 'City of Gems’ and the main gem mining centre of Sri Lanka. It is said that there are over 2,000 private mines in the area. Sapphires, rubies and other gems are mined here. Alongside gems it is also known for its rice and fruit cultivation. We even spotted some tea in the area. This is low-country tea unlike that we had seen in the Central Highlands. We stopped off at a small family mine and were taken to see the mine workers. The day was hot and it looked a hard and backbreaking existence. The mine shaft itself was very simple with the walls prevented from caving by wood and bamboo timbers. Washing, screening, and sorting occurred on the surface using rattan baskets. We were then taken into the house there was a small exhibition of stones and gems found in the area then we went through to the shop. I ended up buying some white topaz earrings and a lovely moonstone bracelet. They were really lovely and the daughter had excellent English. She told us she wanted to be a doctor and I was very sure she would reach her aim.
We travelled back through beautiful countryside past rubber and coconut plantations and bright green rice paddies. That evening there was another wonderful sunset and I got some great photos.
