Hill Stations (Haputale and Nuraway Eliya ~ Sri Lanka)

January 2020

Haputale is slightly scruffy little highland town and bypassed by most tourists in favour of Ella or Kandy (think we made the right decision as from what we heard Ella is nice, but very backpackery). Once you get outside of the immediate environs of the town  you are greeted with some amazing views of tea plantations and countryside.

One major lookout point is called Liptons Seat - a place that Sir Thomas Lipton used to survey his empire from as this is where he built the Dambatenne Tea Factory in 1890. The factory is still in operation and large parts of it and associated machinary date back to its construction.  Quite fascinating to vist and see the path the tea leaves take around the factory being processed - bit like the old board game "Mousetrap". Annoyingly no photoes allowed in the factory.

Tea leaf picking is not a job for the faint hearted as only the top three (for normal tea) light green leaves are picked and payment is based on the amount of leaves picked. There is also a variety of tea called silver tips where only the very small middle leaf is picked. Once processed, silver tips go for many hundreds of dollars per kilogram.

We took the train out off Haputale to the next station (about 7 km away) for a nice day walk back to town. In the station masters office some of the equipment looks like it dates back to the turn of the century.

Prior to the walk we picked up some deep fried treats from a local food stall. Definitely not toned down for the tourist taste buds - however have found consuming a whole has of deep fried garlic tends to makes ones sweat a bit aromatic the next day.

The trip out to the station took us through some great countryside and we followed the locals along the railway lines for the first part of the walk back. The track passes through the Thangamale Bird Sanctuary (nice highland forest but definitely lacking on the avian front) and down to what is now the Adisham Monastry.

The Monastry was originally built by one of the original pre-Lipton tea planters in this area (Thomas Villers) in order to recreate his English lifestyle with a nice cottage and gardens.

Little bits and pieces around the village still bear the stamp of the English.

From Haputale we headed to our next stop (about 3 hours by train) Nuraway Eliya. Given that we were late in booking tickets we ended up with having to opt for 3rd class reserved seats. Pleasently surprised as to how uncrowded and comfortable this option was (having experienced the unreserved option).

Nuraway Eliya is often referred to as Little England due to a vauge British countryside village feel to it mainly bought about from the English and Scottish who arrived here to set up the tea industry in the late 1800's.

One such building with an English feel is the large mock tudor "Grand Hotel". Had high tea here which was a pleasent way to spend the afternoon. A plus was that the Grand Hotel has at least three restaurants which includes a very good (and surprisingly cheap) Indian.

Along with Grand Hotel are various other hotels with billiards rooms and tennis courts, the Royal Turf Club, built in 1875 (no horse racing when we were there instead lots of kiddies getting pony rides) and the Nuwara Golf Club, founded in 1889 (though complete with dogs dozing on the greens).

A nice walk through one of the tea plantations takes you to the Lovers Leap waterfall. It was a pleasant 5km walk for us but found the locals take a Tuk Tuk to within a 100m of the falls.

Had planned to spend some time wandering through the towns Victoria Park (home to a wide range of birds) but a swarm of wasps put paid to that idea (park closed for the afternoon) - a pity as from what we could see it was quite nice. So killed an hour in Gregory Park which has a large lake. Quite entertaining as today was a Saturday and the locals were out en-masse at the park and the choice of entertainment was jetski rides (but have to wonder how buoyant the life saver jackets were as most were coming apart at the sea  ms). 

From here we head to Kandy.