Off beaten track

Continued from (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) Did I mention it was raining? Well it was and showed no signs of letting up. As we huddled under the tarp, making some feeble attempts at sopping up the tents, one of the more astute members of the group noted the river. Where there had previously been a somewhat small rapid shooting frothy white through the rocks, there was now what looked like the Limpopo in full blast. Brown water with vestiges of white foam shot through the rocks with frightening energy as the water swirled up the tree trunks that had previously stood high and dry. The sand bank on the opposite bank, which, with its rock face backing had seemed such an ideal camp site was now washed away. Given the impending prospect of being washed into the Senanayake Samudra, kitchen table and all, we discussed our options, namely : a)    get the hell out of there and go crash at the park office b)    batten down and stay, hope the rain stops and the riv...

Continued from (Part 1) (Part 2) I woke up bright and early to take some landscapes from our campsite. Unfortunately the sun didn't have the same idea and it was a decidedly overcast and damp day that I woke up to. While the rest of the camp slumbered I wandered down to the river, camera in hand and amused myself by stopping my aperture down as much as possible and taking some long exposures. Sleeping camp; Gal Oya river at dawn Once enough people had woken up to provide some sort of rescue service in case of wild animal attack I wandered out of camp for some ablutions and then met up with everyone else for a morning river bath. Dry zone notwithstanding the Gal Oya is pretty damn cold early in the morning and rain appeared to be in the air. Following a late breakfast we powwowed as to what to do, finally deciding on a small walk to Makara , about a click from the camp site to where the river exits into the mighty Senanayake Samudra. A friend of mine (whom I have no reason to dis...

Continued from (Part 1) After a handful of hours of sleep and the long, arduous drive , we celebrated by carrying a mountain of camping gear down a small path to our campsite on the banks of the Gal Oya. In the spirit of trying out this Web 2.0 business, I did a small videolog of our approach to the campsite. Note that most of the time I'm talking utter nonsense due to equal measures of exhaustion, concentrating on not trying to fall down the path and my general ability to talk nonsense. David Attenborough I most certainly am not. Also please note there might be a small amount of swearing in the clip so close your ears if you're sensitive to that kind of thing. Videos aside, we carried everything but the kitchen table (oh wait...we did carry the kitchen table down) to the site and set up. Thankfully the tents (rather brilliant knock offs of $500 REI tents) were easy to install and put up and in the space of an hour we were sorted. All there was to do was jump in the river...

�Let me call you back and let you know if I�m in� 10 seconds later� �I�m in.� I t really didn�t take much arm twisting for me to say yes to a three day camping trip to Gal Oya when S called to let me know a space had opened up on their trip. Gal Oya looms large in my family lore, my grandfather having been one of the lead engineers when the Senanayake Samudra was being built. All my life I�ve heard fascinating tales of elephants interrupting picnics, inspection tours and arguments with foreign engineers. Add this lore to the obsessive fascination I already have for the dry zone and Gal Oya was indeed my Lankan Shangri La . So it was that I found myself at C�s place at the ungodly hour of midnight helping pack the vehicle for the trip. A trusty old Toyota doublecab was our chariot to the jungles but before we could leave we had to set up the seats and canopy in the back. What looked quite simple was of course not quite so and a lot of grunting, lifting and cuts from the metal poles were...