Bomburu Fall / Ravan Fall and Hakgala Garden

Year and Month	02-June-2017
Number of Days	One
Crew	05
Accommodation	N/A
Transport	Train, Car
Activities	Nature Exploring, Photography, Waterfall Hunting, Botanical Garden visit
Weather	Good
Route	Colombo -> Nanuoya by Train -> Nuwaraeliya -> Hakgala -> Perawela
Tips, Notes and Special remark	Carry enough water Do not try in rainy days Ask the directions from local Do not disturb to the villagers Do not pluck flowers Do not go out of the trails Do not litter Leave only footprints
Related Resources	None
Author	Ranshan Fernando
Comments	Discuss this trip report, provide feedback or make suggestions at Lakdasun Forum on the thread Bomburu Fall / Ravan Fall and Hakgala Garden

We had a train journey to Nuwaraeliya for meet a special person of our member. Since Madusanka is there, we thought to visit Ravan Fall which couldn’t see on our previous journey. So, we took Madusanka’s car and driven to Perawela to see the Bomburu Bride as we cannot pass her without visiting and after that we went to Ravan fall and spend sometime over there.

After that we went to Hakgala botanical garden we I have been there for the last time on 2002. Since we had enough time to roaming around Nuwaraeliya we walked along the paths and had a silent exploration about a path to climb Hakgala Mountain. Because Hakgala is a high sensitive forest reserve and as we heard on one can climb this giant mountain due to this restrictions. However we couldn’t find any secret path or even any clue about climbing this mountain but we were able to achieve this mountain range in October 2018 successfully. But at that time I and Malith are only able to do this secret hike and still we didn’t published any details about that hike as we are not able to disclose the methods we followed.

On the way to Nanuoya

The train

Surounding

Poor St.Clair

Came to Nuwaraeliya

Cultivation

Above 1900m

And more

Gardens

Result

Cultivation

Cultivated lands

Road to Perawela

Path to Bomburu Falls

Minor fall

Here is she

Bomburu

View

The camping area

Its always beautiful

Heading to Ravan Fall

path to the village

Scenic

Foot path beginning

Path to Ravan

For the cultivation

Path to the fall

There is she

It has a different style

Full view

See the pattern

Hakgala Botanical Garden is one of the five botanical gardens in Sri Lanka. The other four are Peradeniya Botanical Garden, Henarathgoda Botanical Garden, Mirijjawila Botanical Garden and Seetawaka Botanical Garden. It is the second largest garden in Sri Lanka. The garden is contiguous to Hakgala Strict Nature Reserve.

Hakgala Botanical Garden is situated on the Nuwara Eliya-Badulla main road, 16 km from Nuwara Eliya. The garden has a cool temperate climate because of altitude is 5,400 feet above the sea level. The mean annual temperature ranges between 16 °C to 30 °C during course of a year. From December to February it has a cold climate, while the warm climate persists from April to August.

The garden was established in 1861, under George Henry Kendrick Thwaites as an experimental cultivation of Cinchona, a commercial crop thriving at the time. Once after the Tea replaced the Cinchona, it was turned into an experimental Tea cultivation. In 1884 it transformed to a garden. Since then many sub tropical and some temperate plants were planted in the gardens.

In the folklores, it says Sri Lankan demon King Ravana after abducting Sita, kept her hidden in this area and area was offered to Sita as a pleasure garden, the place finds mention in the Ramayana as Ashok Vatika. The area was named as “Sita Eliya” and “Sita Amman Temple” was built on the site.

There are over 10,000 species of flora planted here and during the Spring season in Nuwara Eliya thousands of visitors come to see the blooms here. Number of annual visitors are around 500,000. The garden is famous for number of species of Orchids and Roses are planted there. (Source – Wikipedia)