Eye of the Mother Nature Nilvalagala Cave

Year and Month	2018 March 03
Number of Days	One
Crew	2 (Sobasiri Team)
Accommodation	N/A
Transport	Motor Bicycles
Activities	Hiking, Caving, Rock climbing , Waterfall hunting
Weather	Perfect
Route	Ja-ela -> Ekala -> Gampaha -> Yakkala Junction -> Kandy Road -> Pasyala -> Attanagalla Road -> Meewitiya Road -> Algama -> Sri Craft Village
Tips, Notes and Special remark	Take enough water 2Lx2 Please do not pollute the environment, bring your own garbage with you Keep only the foot prints The land of this cave belongs to a private resort Take necessary permission before try this Carry a rope Carry enough water Wear suitable shoes and suits Have a guide to the place
Author	Ranshan
Comments	Discuss this trip report, provide feedback or make suggestions at Lakdasun Forum on the thread Eye of the Mother Nature Nilvalagala Cave

Sri Craft Village is a private resort which is owned by a young entrepreneur named Sameera. I saw a picture of this cave on their Facebook page and soon after I called to Sameera and asked about the cave as I’m cave explorer. As he said he leased this property for 30 years from the Kandy Dewalaya. This property belongs to Kandy Dewalaya but currently owned by Sri Craft Village under the leased agreement.

However as a Travel Journalist I was able to have a special permission to visit this cave only. Hence I arranged a Saturday and visited the places as it was mapped in google maps. Sameera arranged me 2 boys with ropes and water bottles and we ready to start the hike after the breakfast. There are two main paths to the cave. First path is about 4km hike through a forest and Algama waterfall. It is much difficult than 2nd route.

Second route is very easy but there is no much experience about the forest and sceneries. One of guide told us about some other small caves and water spring at the route one and we decided to have the experience with first route.

Hike started from the back of the resort and we climbed the nearby small mountain through the rubber estate and reached to a summit and we could see up to the Colombo harbor over there. After that we walked along the rocky plain and met the mentioned water spring. It was covered by bricks and pipe lines attached to the nearby villages. After that we got down to another side and walked about 1 km through the dry forest. Again we reached to a rubber estate and met the stream which creates Algama waterfall. We walked 200 along the stream and stopped at Algama waterfall for a while.Again we walked to the left side rubber estate and reached to a Banana planting estate where the last house of this situated in Nilvalagala Mountain. Nilvalagala Mountain is about 150m height Mountain and we reached to the summit with in minutes. After that guide took us to the ridge of the mountain and we got down to the rocks by sitting on the rocky plain. And we reached to an open cave and walked 10m towards the opposite side where the dead end located.

Then we arranged our ropes and one of our guide got down to the cave in 1 minute. Because there are only 4 steps to get down to the large cave from the dead end. But the risk is that 4 steps are situated in 90 degree slope of the rock face. Hence we need a rope to avoid any life risks on the way to get down to the cave. Finally we entered to the cave and the surface of the cave is too big. There can be accommodate for 30 people easily. When we go to the inner corner of the cave we could see the beautiful view of the cave as an “Eye”.

That is why we called it is the “Eye of the mother Nature”. The mountain we can see from the front is the mountain where we saw the water spring. Apart from that we could see few small mountains over there which are named as Gerandigala, Bambaragala, Panihela.Resort was located in Egodagama and Sameera’s home is at Puwaththawala where the second route was located. Ground area of the Nilvalagala Mountain is called “Elipallama” and we could reached “Kella watichcha wala” on that area. As per folk fares King Walagamba used this cave to build his army and him hideout here for some time.

Actually there is a path inside to the rock but we cannot go towards that area due to the entrance is too small.After few hours we left to reach the resort from the other side and it took just 1 hour to reach to the resort. Caving and camping at the top of Nilvalagala Mountain is offered by the resort as they are planning to introduce cave hunting with safety equipment in near future.