Wavulpane - nature's art gallery

By Amal HEWAVISSENTI

It is the chalk grotto of Wavulpane, the matchless limestone creation of nature. It is the legendary underground wonderland and the mother nature's art gallery which snugly nestles in the lee of Buluthota Hills – in the village of Kamburugamuwa to be precise.

A visitor can easily gain access to Wavulpane forest reserve if he chooses to travel for almost twelve kilometres along Pallebedda – Buluthota Road branching off from Ratnapura-Embilipitiya main road.

The Wavulpane forest reserve with breathtakingly beautiful scenery and the chalk grotto with attractively shaped limestones, sprawls for about 25 acres.

The forest reserve of Wavulpane is an evergreen virgin forest.

Here the visitor spots one of nature's most confusing products – a stream of bright yellow water gushing out of a spring about 300 feet away from the grotto. The yellow water is very strange and is believed to be powerful against all types of skin disease. (People who bath there say so.)

A geological museum!

The main grotto is roughly calculated to be five-hundred million years old. The height of the roof of the grotto varies in different places and the total interior of the grotto is a paradise of limestones of attractive shapes and hues. It would by no means be hyperbolic to say that this chalk grotto may sometimes be an art gallery for the lover of aesthetic and a laboratory of bio-diversity for a biologist.

The cavity of the grotto which is roughly 50 feet high, is itself a virtual wonderland in the mould of what we generally see in fairy tales. Darkness pervades the whole grotto and a light shows several small ponds and brooks among stones.

There are smaller caves within the grotto and most of them are several feet higher than the ground level.

Wavulpane chalk grotto has Staglife and Statagmite Shapes of different colours and sizes.

These limestone columns are of attractive colours and numerous limestone shapes instantly amaze the victor in this non pareil art gallery. The Calcium Crbonate columns seem to be growing and they bear multiple shapes ranging from round shapes to flat shapes.

The visitor notices that water trickles from several places in the roof of the grotto and the dark pits of water on the floor of the grotto are the living places for a few varieties of fish endemic to Sri Lanka and perhaps to Wavulpane.

The growing white marble rock adds much beauty to this out-of-the-ordinary place. The marble rock bears the marks of being billions of year old and has been shaped into present state by temperature and pressure.

The underground waterfall

One of the striking spectacle within the grotto is the underground waterfall which cascades down from the roof of the grotto. A gush of water which springs several hundred feet away from the grotto suddenly fall down through a dangerous cavity on the roof into the grotto. The water has a strange yellow colour. The water falls in two columns approximately from a hundred feet and this is considered to be the only underground waterfall so far discovered.

Research carried out by the University of Peradeniya show that the fish living in the dark pools inside the grotto are blind and can perceive situations by the movement of water. The smallest variety of frog and bat is found here.

Trekking through the Wavulpane chalk grotto itself is an adventure which demands taking up direct challenges. It is sometimes an arduous journey through water ways, rocks and small cavities through which the visitor is forced to crawl towards the exit outlet.

Fossil impressions

At the exit of the chalk grotto, one can have a glimpse of animal and plant fossils reckoned to be billions of years in existence. This section of Wavulpane is a unique geological museum which is a lucid account of the evolution of life on earth. Here one can see a petrified body of a gigantic monster very much akin to a dinosaur in prehistoric times. Researchers are surprised to see the spinal cord of the animal much more in its primary stage than in petrified condition.

Another striking fossil shows a stem with a leaf and two small fruits. Apart from that, there are sea corals and marble rocks which create the strange impression that this eccentric terrain had once been submerged in the sea billions of years ago.

The petrified remains of sea creatures and shells make us safely conclude that the terrain had once been the sea bed elevated by a complex geological process.

The yellow stalagmite column which has been forming for a long-time, is a fascinatingly shaped creation of nature which bears resemblance to a yellow pillar plastered and polished by masonry. Throughout the grotto are varied limestones in the shape of a mushroom. The Halvini stream which flows through the grotto continues to clear the grotto of unnecessary things which keep accumulating.

Discovery

Even though the chalk grotto of Wavulpane had been vaguely known to the villagers, it was thoroughly inspected by F. Frank, a provincial surveyor in 1942. He had discovered importance of this natural limestone terrain and made an official reservation of 29 acres for the chalk grotto.

Today it has become a natural forest reserve thanks to the judgematic efforts by F. Frank.

The Wavulpane chalk grotto has a big colony of bats of different species. The research carried out by Prof. Vipula B. Yapa has identified several species of bats and according to him, Wavulpane is the abode of 1,000,000 bats.

At the same time, he has identified a species of bats which is endemic to Wavulpane chalk grotto.

Thus, bat is the prominent animal in Wavulpane.

Wavulpane is a geologically significant place for researchers, students and tourists because this singular site offers higher amount of geological data. Therefore, it has become the prime duty of the current generation to safeguard it for future generations because unscrupulous visitors have begun to remove fragments of limestone from the place.

Vandalism has begun to take its toll in the precious natural creations in the grotto and animal fossils which are outside the grotto.

Like all other eco-systems in Sri Lanka, Wavulpane too is undergoing severe damage caused by vandals. Wavulpane is qualified to be nominated not only as a bio-diversity hot spot, but also a world heritage site.