Day 14 Nuwara Eliya to Ella. 9 August

Today is the long awaited day that we catch the famous train to Ella. Anticipating the beautiful scenery and hanging out train doors that we have seen in every photo ever taken in Sri Lanka.........

Today is the day that there is a train strike in SL. No trains running at all. Bit disappointed but c’est la vie.

Lucky for us our little man is still around and is happy to drive us to Ella. As you can imagine the buses are chaos, so this actually works well for us.

Nice drive, very windey mountain road and we were still treated to some pretty amazing scenery, just not able to hang out the doors.

Arrived at moonlight homestay about lunchtime and treated to our welcome tea..sitting on our lovely porch with what could have been a fabulous view of Ella rock. Unfortunately some wise owl has approved a concrete multi story to be built. Sad that.

Explored the town of Ella for bit and I must admit we have not seen this many tourists in one place since we’ve been here.

It’s a laid back party destination but having said that there are some fabulous hikes outside the town itself.

After a damn good coffee at Cafe chill we spent the afternoon discovering some walks.

Firstly we stepped off the beaten path and followed a trail to the famous 9 Arch bridge. If we had been lucky enough to be on the train we would have crossed this as we come into Ella. But the view from where we are is fabulous.

Followed a man and his guide along the trail to see if they knew a shortcut, undecided if it was shorter but we did get back on to the main street to embark on our next challenge.

Oh dear........

Little Adams peak is described as a fairly easy walk , again surrounded by absolute beauty. The book states the last 20 minutes of the trail is uphill but otherwise ok.

Lordie!!! The last 20 minutes is steep uphill steps..... but, when one can start to breath normally again and actually look up rather than at our feet, the view is extraordinary. This really feels like being on top of the world.