Greetings to all our persevering fans! We’re back! At least, we were a few weeks ago. The lot of us finally managed to cobble together enough time to go over to the Horton Plains and metaphorically plunder its many riches. Metaphorically. Now don’t go all PETA on us.
Horton Plains is a national park, located in the Nuwara Eliya area, full of wildlife(allegedly) and beautiful scenery(confirmed). We decided to have a look around world’s end and also make a quick journey over to Kirigalpoththa, the second highest peak in Sri Lanka.
Preparation
As far as preparation goes, you don’t really need much to tackle the Horton Plains. If you can go the length of Horton Place without breaking a sweat, you should be alright for this.(See what we did there?). Seriously though, it is little more than a five kilometer walk in the park, literally. And families comprising of old ladies and little girls manage it with ease. Not that we consider old ladies or little girls to be especially negative stereotypes of human physical fitness, don’t go all women’s lib on us.
It will be very cold. Take warm clothing, a raincoat and, if this is during the rainy season, you can take leech socks; unless of course you’re feeling generous with the haemoglobin and want to spread the love a bit. There were no leeches when we went but we’re guessing it’ll be infested during the rainy season. All seasonal info and technical aspects of the trails can be found over at the ever-useful Lakdasun.
It is also useful to book a cabin in the park, if you plan to stay more than one day. Technically, you could just drive over, climb Kirigalpoththa and drive back, but I doubt it’d be very enjoyable. A cabin was Rs. 7000, had four(or five) spacious rooms and was, overall, well worth the money. Cabins come with a cook, though you’ll have to haul up rations like rice and chocolate(what?). Calling it a “cabin” is a slight injustice though, as by all rights it’s a full-fledged house, just in the middle of a wildlife-reserve. And actually everyone calls it a bungalow, which is more apt. You can book bungalows from the Wildlife Department [Department of Wildlife - 0112888585 (Baththaramulla)]. Usually bookings need to be made a month in advance when the season is on. There is excess demand in the bungalow market then.
Getting There
There are a handful of ways to get to the park. You can take the train, hop on a bus or drive. We decided to take the train. Taking a bus will take you roughly 5 hours to get all the way to Badulla. We’re not sure if there are buses to the park from there, but your ever willing tuk tuk will haul you up a skyscraper for the right fee. Taking the train means spending approximately 9 hours on the train till you get to Ohiya station. You’ll know you’re close when you feel the need to start pulling on extra layers of clothing. Or if you don’t have any, when your nose begins to feel numb.
From Ohiya, it’ll be an uphill climb for about 14 kilometers till you get to the entrance of the park. Before embarking on the climb, we enjoyed some hot tea and coffee from a shop near the station. You will get varying accounts of the time it takes to climb this stretch from different people. We got estimates ranging from 20 minutes to an hour. Alternatively, you can take a van or three wheeler from the base, and it will get you up the hill in a few terrifying minutes.
We started walking. Of course we could have sprinted up the mountain and slaughtered that stretch in a matter of minutes, but we had a few weak and infirm people among us so we decided to pile into a passing van for hire.
The geography of the park is such that you pass the cabins, or at least the one we stayed at, on the way to the Horton Plains Visitor Centre from Ohiya. In order of appearance, you first get Ohiya, and about 15 KM from there you get the entrance to the park(This is just a large concrete portal kind of thing, where you have to pay the entrance fee. People are relatively cheap, vehicles are a few hundred rupees), after about a kilometer will get you to the cabin we stayed at, and yet another three kilometers or so will get you to the visitor centre, a bunch of buildings sitting atop a hill, where all the actual trails start.
You might feel slightly let down after hiking the distance to find the place surrounded by vans filled with families having picnics. The visitor centre has a few useful things, like a shop or two and a Museum of sorts chronicling the history of the park.
The Circular Trail
First up on the list was, of course, the regular Horton Plains – World’s End trail. You won’t need food for the world’s end circular trail. Just make sure to take water. There will be places to refill along the way.
This trail is pretty straightforward, and apparently dozens of people do the circuit daily. It has a few sights like a medium sized waterfall, world’s end and mini world’s end. All of these points on interest have little concrete viewing platforms built on them, and feel very much like a walk in the park. The landscape is beautiful, and world’s end is good for a few minutes of taking photos at weird angles. You can’t miss the trail as it’s paved most of the way and constantly has people going up and down the thing.
Just make sure to take a raincoat or something in case it starts raining. It can get pretty chilly up there. The whole thing can be completed in about 3-4 hours, and Lakdasun has the exact details if you need them.
Kirigalpoththa
The much more fun route in the Horton Plains sanctuary, though, is Kirigalpoththa. You can read all about it in our next post. Make sure you bate your breath for it.
