Steve – Page 24 – Project Salad

Steve July 28, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – A Grand Return

We much liked Nuwara Eliya’s Grand Hotel from first acquaintance in September last year so chose it for the final night of our holiday.

The weather was cool and damp on arrival and on-and-off pouring with rain on the morning of departure, but none of this stopped our enjoyment; the children enjoyed freshly made pizza from an outdoor oven soon after arrival; we had the swimming pool to ourselves before dinner; dinner itself was delicious cuisine from the Thai restaurant; whilst we waited to be served, Misa borrowed my wedding ring to “marry” his mother; our warm and comfy bedrooms gave us a good night’s rest; and breakfast was right up to scratch. A fitting way to start the journey home.

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – Ella to Ambewela by rail

I mentioned previously that rail played two parts in our visit to Ella. This blog post recounts the second.

Rather than travel by road to our final nightstop of Nuwara Eliya we decided to take the train for the major part of the journey from Ella, meeting our driver with our luggage at the small station in Ambewela, a village famous in Sri Lanka for its cattle and their dairy produce. Sri Lanka is the best example I have ever known of extensive ribbon development, so travelling by rail gives a completely different perspective; you get to see the country for what it is rather than being obscured by dwelling after dwelling lining main roads.

For much of the journey the train relentlessly climbed and climbed, eventually reaching Sri Lanka rail network’s highest point at 1898 metres / 6226 feet before descending thereafter – eventually all the way back to Colombo Fort railway station.

Hopefully the pictures give you good insight, both of what I describe and what it is like to travel by rail here. Several times during the journey I am sure that I heard the voices of Michaels Portillo and Palin, recounting what they were experiencing or informing on matters of history!

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – Nine Arch Bridge

I mentioned in my Ella post that the railway was to play a part in our stay. Actually, it was to play two parts the first of which is the subject of this post.

After Little Adam’s Peak we walked to the 91 metre long Nine Arch Bridge, a viaduct constructed under the lead of a local builder, P. K. Appuhami, in consultation with British engineers and completed in 1921.

With perfect timing, we arrived just before one of the day’s trains arrived, sounding its horn as it entered the tunnel just before the bridge and clattering along at is lazy pace enforced by higgeldy piggedly sleepers, lose and missing fasteners, and often lack of solid foundation for the sleepers to bear on; as we found out when walking the track for the 1.5 miles / 2.5 km from the bridge to Ella railway station, some of them displace vertically under the weight of a human foot never mind a locomotive or carriage wheel.

Photography opportunities in the late afternoon sunlight were plentiful, including of a herder and his two cows, the latter munching away at the lush grass in this peaceful landscape whilst the former waited patiently sitting on a rail, safe in the knowledge that when the next train came it would be at little more than jogging pace and audible for half a mile before.

A gentle end to an action-packed day.

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – Changeable Lizard

Whilst I was using one camera to photograph the landslip referenced in the last blog post, Misa came bounding over to me with the other, excited to show me what he’d just photographed; what tuned out to be a Changeable Lizard (Calotes versicolor) according to my subsequent research.

The camera had a wide angle lens fitted for landscape photography, the benefit to which with Misa’s photo is that it allows some context for where we were at the top our our climb; his image is the first one shown below.

I then changed the lens to something more appropriate and enjoyed taking the other photos shown above and below. As Misa commented to me at the time it was almost as if the lizard was posing for each shot, it giving me a full ten minutes to achieve what I wanted!

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – Little Adam’s Peak

As mentioned in the previous post, after enjoying the zipwire we continued the climb to the summit of Adam’s Peak. Hot work, but worth it for the view. Behind Emi and Rennie in the summit photograph above is a very long sheer drop! The Buddha statues you will see below are out of sight to the right.

I noticed that there had recently been a landslip in the same place that had destroyed a section of road on my previous visit to Ella nine years ago, and Misa spotted a new friend who will be the subject of the next post!

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – Flying Ravana zipwire

When Misa and Emilka were asleep during our first night in Ella, I investigated how best to hike to Little Adam’s peak from our hotel; at around two and a half miles each way, a perfectly achievable ambition with two thirteen year olds even in the prevailing heat. In the process of doing this I discovered the Flying Ravana zipline directly on our path! To make time available for this extra adventure, walking the full distance was replaced with asking our driver to take us as far as he could, we then walking the remaining distance to and from the zipline (and scaling Little Adam’s peak as you’ll read in the next post).

It was short and sweet after the amazing height, length and speed of the Velocity zipline in Snowdonia that I had enjoyed with friends four years ago, but still professionally run to European ropeway standard, great fun, an unplanned bonus and a perfect introduction to ziplining for Rennie, Misa and Emi.

You can see all four of us go down the run here, as well as Misa and Emilka’s second run as filmed by Misa, here and by Rennie from the viewing platform here.

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – The Ekho Hotel at Ella

Arriving after sunset on a damp and cloudy evening following heavy rain, we awoke the next morning to a blue sky and hot sunshine. Ella is located at nearly 3,500 feet / 1050 metres altitude so we were prepared for the cool weather that I had experienced previously, but this was nothing like that. As you will read in the next post, it got even hotter and we had some sweltering hill walking ahead of us!

Having first experienced it nine years ago and more recently recommended it to my parents, I chose the Ekho hotel not for its architecture but because of its picturesque location and attentive service and neither let us down; no cloud to spoil the view and a caring approach to the hotel’s guests even with full occupancy on the Saturday night; locals escaping Colombo for the fresh air and tranquil environment.

Each bedroom is named after a train, bearing its name and with the room number the first three digits of the service number; together with train ticket key fobs and other train themes in the rooms, an especially nice touch given what was to come for us.

The penultimate image below shows the view from the garden hot tub – with hot being the operative word. In the cool evening air, a lovely way to relax and even better when a cold beer is delivered with an even colder frosted glass. Cheers!

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – The drive to Ella

The drive from Passikudah to Ella for the next part of our holiday was about 114 miles / 185 kilometres and would take just over two hours in most of Europe, but in practice normally requires four and a half hours. Add miles and miles of temporarily unmade road and torrential rain towards the end of the drive and it actually took over five.

This leisurely pace across largely open countryside gave us good opportunity though to see a part of Sri Lanka largely unfamiliar to us; flat all the way from Batticaloa on the coast until the hill country well inland, it is very different to what we have experienced before.

I hope the photographs give a flavour of the drive. The market selling deliciously fresh fruit and vegetables is where this pin is in Mahiyanganaya.

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – Coconut plantation

Whilst staying at the Sunrise we walked across the road to take a guided tour of the coconut plantation. Normally open for visitors, instead it was opened up personally for us following a call from the hotel reception. 4,000 trees, each yielding an average of 50 coconuts per annum and all harvested and processed by hand – plus a couple of bovine friends at the coconut oil press. Nothing is wasted, the fibre being used for rope and ornamental purposes and the husks for barbecue charcoal. The saplings with rootballs in polythene bags are nine months old; the trees grow quickly.

I don’t think the circuit breaker installation would pass a health and safety check; spot the live rail within a finger’s reach!

It was a hot and sticky tour under a scorching sun, but well worth it – and with delicious fresh dragon fruit to enjoy at the end.

Steve

Steve July 27, 2020

English Blog

Summer holiday – Sunrise by Jetwing

As Rennie’s photo above clearly demonstrates, it’s easy to understand why the Sunrise by Jetwing has its name; waking up in time for sunrise, she quietly picked up one of my cameras, slipped out of the bedroom and made the short walk to the beach to take this lovely image.

We had a super stay from lunchtime on Monday through to lunchtime on Thursday, and as with the Jetwing Lake found very low occupancy; there were never more than a handful other guests as well as ourselves at this 58 bedroom hotel. As with the previous hotel though it was immaculately kept and all staff were both employed and retaining of their high standard of service. It would be easy to become lax, but this wasn’t the case.

The swimming pool is 108 metres long, and once again Rennie took good advantage for keeping fit and getting good exercise. Friends from Colombo were staying at the similarly low-occupancy adjacent-but-one resort of Malu Malu (“Fish Fish”) and we enjoyed meeting up with them for a drink and a swim, whilst they came to us for afternoon tea.

All too soon we were checking out, but as with the adjacent resort of Uga Bay where we spent Christmas, we much liked what we found; we happily recommend it to anyone coming to Sri Lanka when restrictions are lifted and who wants to relax, read, listen to the waves, cool off a bit in the pool or the sea (“a bit” being relevant because each is like a warm bath), be pampered and generally unwind.

Steve