Hinterland’s beauty shown to Sita by King Ravana
by Mountain Rangers
The legend
 This island hides numerous stories of its past among the pristine wild. A
fraction of those stories can be found in the village folklore as magical
remnants of a proud civilisation. The legend of “Ravana”; the mighty king of the
“Lankapura” is one of them.
It is said that the King “Ravana” abducted princess “Sita” from India and
brought her here. The King had chosen a beautiful path that crosses the mountain
range next to Pussallawa to take her to ‘Asoka Watika’ from ‘Lankapura’ and even
today, one can view the path marked by his majestic chariot - Dadumonaraya’ on
top of the peak.
The route
The Blue Mountain tea estate is found close to Thawalamthenna in the
Peradeniya-Nuwara Eliya Road. After walking through the small estate roads which
are laid across the ocean of perfectly trimmed tea bushes for about 12 km, we
met the trail head. The road across the tea estate was not very difficult, but
the sun burned us till the end.
 At the edge of the estate, there began a strip of thick-grown, montane forest
that is nurtured by a number of streams flowing down from the mountain. The
forest was very thick, so that even a small dead tree cannot not touch the
ground as they were held straight by its neighbours.
Although the path was clear at the trailhead, after a few minutes, we were
bewildered as the path divided itself to several small trails among the old
trees which are adorned with colourful lichens. The vast number of game trails
also made it evident that this lush forest is a home for many animals. As the
forest was full of small paths, the only solution was to find our own track to
reach the summit.
Peak
After struggling with the trees, bushes and hundreds of climbers, we reached the
base of the mountain and the next target was to climb up the wall to reach the
peak. Hundreds of small bushes entwined our legs insisting that they would not
let us go. In the tiring struggle, they released millions of small airborne
seeds, which was a magnificent scene, but a painful sensation to the nose. The
small speckles deployed their fearsome attack on us and after a couple of
minutes, we were covered in the wooly fuss, sneezing continuously.
At the end of the kingdom of those vicious beauties, we met the crag. We dragged
our luggage along while crawling through the strong, well grown bushes in 80 -90
degree slopes. And finally, we have reached the summit by climbing up through
the drop of Chariot Path.
 Eventually, all the great efforts and struggles were paid off by the remarkable
view on the top. The sun was dying in the Western sky, while the clouds wove the
colorful canopies for the night. In the background, we could see the Kothmale
Reservoir and Sri Pada. Sita Tear Pond, which is believed to be created with the
tears shed by Sita was still full of water.
We camped at the edge of the Chariot Path. The song of the night was sung by
bands of crickets. Undoubtedly, that starry sky is the most beautiful night sky
we have ever witnessed in our journeys. The zero light pollution enabled
thousands of flickering stars to appear bright in front of the amazing Milky
Way. The lights at the Sri Pada route were the only man-made light we saw from
the Camp Site.
Peaks
The morning views were astounding. The rising sun revealed all the surrounding
mountain peaks that were floating in the sea of clouds. The glistening,
dew-dipped grass plain created a heaven on the top of the lonely mountain.
After having breakfast, we descended down to the Muul Oya Estate in about 4 hrs.
|
