DICE-INSPIRED EVENING SAFARI, HERDS OF ELEPHANTS, CROCODILES, EAGLES AND FRAZZLED BATS
HEADING TO UDUWALAWE
As the dice suggested, we were leaving Tissa to head to Uduwalawe to take in another national park and another safari trip.
As a second part of the dice roll we were taking buses, via Thanamalwila to Uduwalawe rather than a direct tuk-tuk ride that was offered to us.
The buses were both really cramped and unbearably hot at times. Only locals seemed to be riding the buses here and were surprised to see any Western faces. I did get chatting to a few of the locals though and they were really friendly and excited to hear about our travel plans.
We arrived in Uduwalawe by early afternoon and got a jeep to take us to our hotel, where we enquired about safari options.
The guy who worked at the hotel was really helpful and arranged one for us that evening, so off we went for safari number 2!
UDUWALAWE SAFARI
JOURNEY TO THE NATIONAL PARK
We were heading for an evening safari, from around 3pm until the park closes at sunset.
On the way there I noticed that there were some things hanging from the power lines at frequent intervals. After a while I realised that they were bats. They’d been hanging from the power lines and gotten electrocuted and were stuck rigid and completely frazzled. Creepy stuff.
It was around 30 mins drive to the national park from our hotel. A couple of miles before arriving at the national park and we encountered our first elephant.
ON SAFARI
Wow. What a safari trip this was.
As soon as we entered the national park we saw herds of elephants.
I’m gonna make this post pretty much just a selection of my favourite snaps from the day, as I can’t really explain it much better than the pictures can. Suffice it to say, it was an incredible afternoon and I can’t speak highly enough of the experience.
Here come the photos!
Hard to believe, but the dark line at the top of this tree shows where the water can come up to. WTF???
Hols loving using her binos
And that’s the lot!
We headed back to the hotel, after an awesome 3 hour safari, with the sun setting over Uduwalawe.
VIDEO DIARY
If you haven’t seen it on the dice roll page, then here’s the video of the dice roll that led us to Uduwalawe and the safari in more detail.
Enjoy!
NEXT STOP – ELLA
We spent just the one night in Uduwalawe and when we returned to the hotel we were treated to a feast. An awesome one night stop and I recommend it to anyone who is backpacking in Sri Lanka.
We were heading onto Ella next for a few days.
Read on to hear more about it and in the meantime please feel free to post any comments below. I’d love to hear from you and what you think of the dice travels so far!
