To Wilpattu National Park

We'd planned to get up later this morning, but our new little cat friend had other ideas! I'd seen her still hanging around when I'd got up in the night to visit the bathroom. Around 6.45 I woke up with the sensation of a slight weight on my legs. Yes, the cat had somehow negotiated the mosquito net and come to sleep on top of me. I carefully reached for my phone to take a photo. My movement woke her so she came up level with our heads and woke Chris too. We don't have a cat ourselves, but we do both love them, so we were happy to spend a bit more time with her before getting up.

We finished packing and left the bags to be collected. Breakfast again was quite a spread though they'd got the message that we weren't keen on the porridge! Afterwards we went back to our hut where Kumar and a number of the staff had gathered to see us off and Champi had arrived to collect us. Kumar took a few photos, we said our thank yous and goodbyes, and set off for our next destination.

It was only a couple of hours to Wilpattu National Park, even with a coffee stop at a place which claimed to serve Italian coffee, and which did indeed deliver a good espresso.

Champi dropped us off at the park gates where we met Namal, owner of Wilpattu Safari Camp. We transferred to his jeep, in which he had just finished a drive with the only other two guests (a young English couple on their honeymoon). We drove the short distance to the camp and were there in time to settle into our simple tent before lunch. This was a buffet of good curries, followed by curd and treacle.

Then it was time for our first game drive in Wilpattu. Namal explained that some roads in the park were still closed following the cyclone last December, so the main road through it would be busier, and certainly there seemed to be a lot of jeeps at times, especially (of course) around animal sightings. But I was pleased to observe none of the chaotic jostling for position that had marred out visit to Ranthambore some years ago.

Top of my 'hope to see' list here was a leopard and in that respect we drew a blank on this first drive. But I'm always almost as happy to see the smaller animals and birds when on safari and this drive delivered plenty of these. It also delivered my number two hoped-for animal, a sloth bear. The (almost full) list of our sightings was:
Spot-Billed Pelican
Spotted Deer Fawn
Little Green Bee Eater
Crested Serpent Eagle
Asian Wild Buffalo
Land Monitor Lizard
Muntjac Or Barking Deer
Brown Fish Owl
Sri Lankan Flap-Shelled Turtle
Sloth Bear
Crested Hawk Eagle
Torque Macaque
Black Headed Ibis
Mugger Crocodile
Brahminy Kite
Ruddy Mongoose

Back at the camp we freshened up and changed. We met up with the others around 7.00 for pre-dinner drinks (rather good Sri Lankan gin and tonic) then ate the meal together. It was a very good selection served buffet style, with dosas, dhal, chicken curry and coconut sambals, followed by a dessert much like creme caramel.

We sat for a while afterwards exchanging stories. Namal had some good tales of near-misses with the dangerous animals, including a German tourist who thought it was a good idea to go for a walk alone in the national park! But we came back to the tent early under the escort of Namal; no one here is allowed to walk back alone at night.