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Choosing a Trail
The Knuckles mountain range in Central Sri Lanka interestingly gets its name from its resemblance to the knuckles of a human hand. This beautiful forest range with its many trails, diverse landscapes and stunning waterfalls has become a hiker’s favourite over the last couple of years. The forest is said to have upto 34 different trails of varying levels of difficulty. We chose the Duwili Ella, which is one of the hardest and is close to 16 km each way. Despite being a strenuous hike, this trail has probably one of the most magnificent spots in the entire forest - The Duwili Ella waterfalls. Where you get to climb down to a small alcove behind the waterfalls which offers you some stunning views of the forest.
This particular route is relatively difficult and is not recommended for beginners. Also it’s important that you go with a guide. The Knuckles forest covers a vast area with several trails and it is easy for hikers to get lost without a qualified guide. The Duwili Ella trail is best done over two days and offers some fabulous spots to camp overnight offering wonderful night sky views.
Key information
Distance covered - 32 KM
Level of difficulty - Medium -Hard
What to carry
Food - This is a long and strenuous hike, carry as much as you can. If you have a guide he will take care of the main meals, but do carry plenty of snacks.
First aid - Carry as much as you can. Especially band aids and sprain sprays as some of the stretches are slippery.
Empty bottles - Carry empty bottles and fill up at the many streams on the trail. The water is clean and safe to drink.
Sunscreen, a cap and a torch are essential.
We set off from Colombo late night and reached the edge of the forest in the early hours of the morning. We freshened up and had a light breakfast before we got started. The trail began with a lot of wide open fields and grasslands and some gentle streams. Our guide advised us to fill up our water bottles whenever we came across a stream. The water was clean and safe to drink. As we continued the forest started getting denser and the streams also got wider and more rapid.
A couple of stray dogs adopted us and gave us company along the way. We took a lunch break by a stream and heated up some precooked food on a bonfire. The large opening by the stream seemed to be a popular spot as we saw a few other hikers as well taking a break there.
As we went up higher, the landscape started to slowly but dramatically change. The trees disappeared into the sky and were far more dense.
Camping Overnight at the Infinity Pool
We decided to camp at the famed infinity pool for the night. The last 3 km was a steep and strenuous climb and was pretty hard. By then we were exhausted and it was pretty dark which made this a bit harder. Seasoned hikers can reach this spot much before sundown if you maintain a brisk pace. But once we finally reached our camp site, the view and ambience of the place was well worth the crazy climb.
The stunning night sky which we don’t get to see in the city was a true reward after a long day of hiking. We went to sleep in our tents believing the sky could not get prettier, but waking up to a sky that was a myriad shades of pink was something else.
Waterfall Chasing - Duwili Ella
The following day, we started early in the morning as we wanted to reach our starting point at least by afternoon and get back to Colombo by dinner. But as luck would have it, we ended up having a dramatic day which threw a spanner in all our plans!
2 апр 2023
