Elephants at Udawalawe National Park
After another great breakfast at Resort Deepika, this time including a banana and chocolate pancake, we checked out and met our driver Sumeera from Sri Lanka Driver Guide, who would be our personal driver and guide for the next week of our trip. We loaded our bags into the car and started the journey inland towards Udawalawe.
Not long after leaving the coast, Sumeera pulled over just off the highway and returned with fresh king coconuts for us and ice creams for the kids. It was a small gesture but a really nice way to start the drive as we continued through the Sri Lankan countryside.
Eventually we arrived at our accommodation, Jungle Paradise Hotel, where after some welcome refreshments we sat down for lunch before checking into our room. Upon entering our room we got a nice surprise, what we thought would be a standard room turned out to be a full two-bedroom suite, or as the hotel calls it, a deluxe apartment. It was spacious, comfortable and easily the nicest places we had stayed so far on the trip.
Once we had dropped our bags and settled in for a few minutes, we headed back out again for our first activity in Udawalawe where Sumeera drove us to the Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home. This is a rehabilitation centre for orphaned baby elephants that have been found across Sri Lanka who have lost their mothers due to accidents, human-wildlife conflict or other circumstances and the centre cares for these elephants until they are old enough to survive on their own, at which point they are released into Udawalawe National Park.
As a result, visitors aren’t allowed to get close and there is no interaction with the elephants so you get to watch from a viewing area of about 30 metres away. We were there during feeding time so a few elephants at a time were released and came running up to the staff who had prepared large bottles of milk attached to funnels. It was pretty funny watching them charge in, making loud trumpet sounds as they rushed toward the milk. After some milk, they were shooed away so others could have a turn, however a few of them clearly had other ideas though and tried sneaking back in line for seconds and towards the end, there was one small elephant who simply decided to help himself, using his trunk to serve himself some more milk, hilarious!
Just as we were leaving, the weather suddenly changed and our first rain in Sri Lanka began to fall. And when I saw it started to rain… it absolutely poured. We realised how lucky we were to have booked the safari the next morning and not that afternoon as we contemplated as we saw several safari jeeps driving past completely covered with rain tarps.
Instead we returned to Jungle Paradise Hotel and spent the afternoon relaxing in our apartment while listening to the rain and thunder outside. Dinner that night was at our hotel where Suz had Kottu and I went for another Sri Lankan rice and curry. The portions were huge however and we were nowhere near able to finish them off, no matter how good they were.
After dinner we changed into our swimmers and spent some time in the hotel pool, enjoying a night swim with the warm water, the quiet jungle surroundings and the stars above us, not a bad way to end a pretty good day!
The next morning started very early, we were up before sunrise with me grabbing a quick coffee before we climbed into our safari jeep at 5:30am together with our safari driver Lasa.
Driving through the darkness towards Udawalawe National Park was a pretty special and as we got closer, we started seeing the sky slowly started to brighten, turning from deep blue to orange and pink as the sun prepared to rise.
After purchasing our tickets at the entrance gate, we began the safari and it didn’t take long before we encountered our first elephants. Just a short distance into the park we came across a group of them standing beside the road, several adults, a few juveniles and one tiny baby that couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. The little one stayed close to the larger elephants, clearly being protected by the rest of the herd.
As we continued through the park we saw a wide variety of other wildlife as well. There were many different birds including eagles, herons, bee-eaters and pelicans. We also spotted crocodiles resting near the water, monkeys moving through the trees and countless peacocks wandering through the grasslands.
However, the real highlight of Udawalawe was all the elephants and as we continued throughout the safari we encountering more and more of them. At one point a group of five or six elephants completely blocked the road. Two of them were juveniles, one slightly bigger than the other, and it looked like the smaller one was trying to start a fight with the bigger one.
Towards the end of the safari we came across a young male elephant standing alone near the lake. He already had some decent tusks growing and as we got a little closer, his trunk stretched out curiously, almost as if he wanted to grab something, possibly Suz.
By the end of the safari we had seen around twenty-five elephants in total and our driver Lasa was great help in pointing the animals out and providing binoculars so we could see the animals at distance as well.
After a fantastic morning we returned to Jungle Paradise Hotel for a late breakfast where Suz and I decided to try a more traditional Sri Lankan breakfast which included String Hoppers, red rice, coconut sambal, eggs and a dhal curry, whilst Xander and Eloise opted for toast, eggs and fresh fruit.
Once breakfast was finished we headed back to the room to pack our bags and relax for a short while before Sumeera arrived right on time, loaded up our bags and off we went.
The time had come to leave Udawalawe and drive to the small mountain town of Ella.
