7th July - Set the alarm for 4.00 a.m. but got up only at about 4.45 a.m. Packed the vehicle and left around 5.15 a.m. Stopped for breakfast just past the Udawalawe bund at 8.35 a.m. Left at 9.00 a.m. Reached the Society bungalow, Yala at 1.00 p.m. Had lunch and slept a while. Woke up at 3.00 p.m. had tea and left for the park, but unfortunately the vehicles torsion bar (wonder if I spelt that correctly) jumped out and that meant no evening round but a long and tedious wait in the garage getting it fixed. Went to Tissamaharama to get it fixed. While waiting at the garage we met our first set of friends who were joining us and a little while later our other set of friends joined us at the garage. We finally left the garage around 7.00 p.m. and headed for the bungalow. We had our usual drink and then dinner and chatted till 1.00 a.m. in the morning and finally decided to call it a day since we had to be up early the next morning.
8th July - Woke up to the alarm and got ready and went to the park to get a tracker. Got ourselves a tracker and went to the park. Non of us had any luck. Came back to the bungalow. Played a game of monopoly. Had lunch, went to sleep. Got up had tea and went to the park. We had a sighting of a young man leopard cub. It was a very brief sighting. We left it and headed back out to the bungalow. Had our usual drink and chat and had dinner and rolled into bed around 11.00 p.m.
9th july - Got up in the morning and went to the park. Did not see anything as well today. But our tracker told us a hair raising story. We asked him where he had been on the day of the tsunami and he said he had been in the park. He had been guiding a group of visitors and they were on the main road when a herd of elephant had just cut across their path and seemed to be in a big hurry to get to the other side so they let them pass and when they had passed they proceeded on their journey and lo and behold not even 5 minutes after that he said a huge wave about 20 ft just went past them. If those elephants had not interrupted them they would have probably been in the middle of that wave. We asked him "what did you think at the time" he said, "we did not know what to think". How lucky they were!!!
We then went back to the bungalow. Had lunch and decided to go to the park a little early that day owing to the shortage of trackers. So we went around 2.00 p.m. No luck again on the game round. Came back to the bungalow. Had our usual drinks and chat and had dinner and went to bed early.
10th July - Woke up in the morning. Since we were not having any luck at all we decided not to do the morning round but instead head back to Colombo early. Had breakfast at around 8.00 a.m. and left around 9.00 a.m. Stopped at Silverray at Pelmadulla and had lunch. Went home at about 2.30 p.m.
We never usually miss a morning round, the fact that we were having no luck and we were staying in a bungalow outside the bungalow helped. But had we had done the morning round we would have had to stay till evening probably cos we were later informed by friends who had stayed on that there had been a kill on the main road and the leopard had come and feasted on the kill most of the day right in the open totally oblivious to any vehicles that had come along. The kill was that of a deer. How unlucky we were!!!!!
The route to Yala will basically show you that one has basically got to travel from one coast right across to the other coast that is ofcourse if you are starting off from Colombo.
