Ella

I think we’ll have rested in Ella, or at least stopped, for a couple of days to take in the vastness and beauty of the tiers and acres of tea plantations. I can say ‘we’ now because two friends are planning to join me for the first three legs helping to raise even more funding for women and children in Sri Lanka. We’ll have sipped freshly picked Ceylon green tea in the manicured tea gardens. The cooler climate is here to be enjoyed, as well as magical waterfalls to be discovered. The bridge in the sky (Nine Arches Bridge) will have been walked across, and the gentler hills rambled over.

The bridge in the sky – Nine Arches Bridge

On the way to Kandy

The next part of my journey will be to get to Kandy, Sri Lanka’s cultural and spiritual capital. Much more about that in my next blog. Getting to Kandy looks like it’ll involve going back on ourselves along the British-built Victorian train line via Nuwara Eliya. This will be, I think, the most direct route. It’ll be a long leg (approximately 140km) although it doesn’t look this far on the map. We’ll cover most of it on the old hill country train which is very slow but should not be too arduous! Where there are opportunities to get off and trek, perhaps around World’s End, then we surely will.

World’s End is famous for its plunging cliff edge of 825 metres revealing enormous views across much of the south of Sri Lanka. On a clear day you can see right down to the coast.

Nuwara Eliya

Nuwara Eliya is also known as ‘Little England’ due to its cool climate, colonial style architecture, well-tended hedgerows and pretty gardens. This was the favoured cool-climate escape for the English and Scottish pioneers of Sri Lanka’s tea industry. The hill country train will pass through Nuwara Eliya and I’d like to stop here. Visiting a tea estate and having a tour of a real operating factory before taking the next train onto Kandy will be a must, as long as they’re up and running and have no visiting restrictions post-Covid.