Friday 23rd February

Seamlessly we seem to have come to a decision about what to do next… after a comical exit from Chimneys (fortunately we had some other guests to chat with over breakfast and it turns out that they felt exactly the same as we did about the place). The chef actually drives us in a tuktuk into town, rather than dealing with all the questions about why we’re not continuing to stay there (we only booked for two nights anyway) we explain that we’re meeting friends in town (a little white lie). He drops us off but lingers hoping to meet our friends, fortunately we’re saved by the bell, literally, he has a call from his boss it seems, so we wave our goodbyes and wander off. We find our new hotel, dump our bags and then head out into Nuwara Eliya (which I discover was originally called Newera Ellia back in 1800’s). Anyway, we wander around parts of the town, we head up to the Post Office, although being a religious day it’s closed. Next we cross over to wander into Victoria Park, which of course, being a foreigner we have to pay to enter. Next stop is the Grand Hotel, which we wander around and stop for a coffee. We then we head up to Pedro’s Tea Plantation as we’ve read about a lovely walk you can do unguided through the plantation which then leads you to Lover’s Leap waterfalls. By the time we’ve done all of this and walked back to our hotel we’ve clocked up 15km. We shower to warm up again and then head back out to Themparadu for dinner, they’re not serving alcohol tonight, so there’s lots of glum European faces in the room 😆 Head back to our hotel and it’s in a very noisy part of town so not sure we’ll get a lot of sleep tonight. Hey ho… we’re off to Weligama tomorrow on the South coast so back to the heat again!