Year 3 -20 January 2026 – Galle –Udawalawe National Park- Sri Lanka
The commercial boats started later today about 6.30am and only one of them. We all got up about 7-7.30am and went to use the shower facilities.
Paul stepped into Keith’s shoes and made scrambled eggs on toast and I prepared the mangoes we had. Both were delicious in their own way.
We had booked a tour to the Udawalawe National Park and the driver was picking us up at 10.00am. We therefore were at the port gate at 10.00am and the driver was there to meet us.
This national park has developed into one of the country’s most popular National Parks. There are some 500 elephants in the park. The park is home to other Sri Lankan creatures such as mongoose, deer, monkeys, crocodiles, sloths and possibly leopards. There is also an array of birdlife. Within the National Park is the Udawalawe Reservoir.
We got in the van and the journey took us just over 2 hours to get to the entrance to the park. However, on the way we passed through a lot of rural countryside with lots of jungle, rice fields and agricultural areas which were very attractive. There were lots of farms and little villages. There were egrets and lots of birdlife around and it was an interesting journey.
We arrived about 12.15pm and it was suggested we had lunch which we did.
At about 13.45 we went into the Elephant Orphanage Sanctuary which looks after elephants until they are about 5 years old and they then try and release them into the wild into the National Park and they have been very successful at doing this. The sanctuary had a sort of museum which told you a lot of things about elephants a lot of which I had stated in previous blogs.
They had a 2.30pm feeding time which we stayed on to watch and they had a lot of small elephants which came running up to the feeding area. They had a tube with a funnel at the end and they would pour milk etc into the tube. They allowed one or two jugs per elephant and moved them on and they then went off to eat some greenery which was on the ground.
There was probably about 30 juvenile elephants for the feeding session and it was interesting to see them.
Once we finished the feeding session we were transferred to an open packed jeep vehicle and we then driven into the National Park going through barriers and then we were into the park and remembering there were wild animals in here.
We were now on safari and on dirt tracks going through the park and we came across a number of elephants on their own and then various herds. They were all eating and using their trunk to grab brass and one of their feet to push the soil at the base of the grass to help ease it up to eat. They as I have said before are magnificent creatures.
We also saw crocodiles-one on a bank and the other in the water. We also saw lots of herons, kingfishers, bee eaters, a pelican and some other exotic birds including fish eagles. We also saw a mongoose. We spent a number of hours driving round observing these lovely creatures and then finally as the sun came down we returned to where we had left the van.
We retraced our steps to the van and then drove back to Galle arriving back about 7.30pm. We clambered on board to Stormbird and had a light supper. It had been a great day albeit with a lot of driving.
The picture of the day is some lovely small elephants rushing to get some food.
Need/Opportunity Year Three
In year three I will be going from Thailand to Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and then on to Mauritius, Reunion, Cape Town, St Helena, Azores and back to the UK.
I am looking for crew from Mauritius/ Reunion Island to Cape Town (mid June to end of July) and from Cape Town to the Azores and then to the UK (mid August onwards). If of any interest do email me.
The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com