Yala National Park, Sri Lanka - Leopard and Elephant Safari

After leaving the coast behind, our group was starting to shrink. Some of our numbers decided to stick it out a little longer at the beach, but the rest of us were ready for a little change of scenery!

With one final glance at the sea, we hopped on the bus and headed straight for the cute little town of Tissamaharama. It’s commonly referred to as Tissa, and it's most well-known for being the gateway to the Yala National Park. The park is famed for the huge variety of bird species, crocodiles, deer and larger game such as buffalo, spotted leopards and Asian elephants that all take refuge in the safety of the park.

For our night in Tissa, the Travelfreaks were booked into a lovely little place called the Lake View Cottage, and from the second we walked through the doors til the moment we left, it was such a treat to be there.

Upon arrival we were asked to select the fruit for our welcome drinks from the spread of bananas, mangoes, papayas and pineapples that they had in the little restaurant-reception area. From there we were brought over to the couches that face out onto the grassy grounds fringed with coconut palms facing the beautiful little lake. While we waited for our drinks we sat back, relaxed and soaked up the view.

Once we’d enjoyed our lovely fresh fruit juice with a little ice cream to cool down, we headed in to our bedroom, which we were delighted to find faced right out onto the lake view. The bed was pushed right up against the window, perfect for a lazy afternoon getting ready for our big safari in the morning!

Our host at the hotel was so wonderful, even though we were the only two staying at the hotel, he arranged 2 safari jeeps so all 9 of us could go together. He even had the cook prepare a little packed breakfast for everyone to snack on throughout the morning.

We decided to call it an early night because we had to be up and out the door by 4:30 AM if we wanted to be in the park early enough to catch the more elusive creatures.

As we dozed away the night, we had a cheeky little mid-night visitor!!! We’d accidentally left the bathroom window open, as we often do, not thinking anything of it. At about 2 in the morning Ange awoke to the sensation of a mouse climbing over his legs!!! We flashed on the light and the little guy startled back into the bathroom, but then we really didn’t know what to do with him!!! We didn’t want to disturb the night staff over it so we pushed the bath mat into the crack under the door hoping that would be enough to contain him. Then we tried to salvage what was left of our beauty sleep. We certainly learned our lesson with open windows!! LOL

When we got up to prepare for the safari, we checked on the little beasty and found that he had completely destroyed the mat trying to get out, but he was still contained, which was the main thing!! By then we were able to have a little chuckle about his determination, and we left for the day in high spirits, optimistic that if our wildlife spotting started before we even made it to the safari, the day certainly had potential!!

As we entered the park, the sun was just rising above the trees and we could already make out the first stirrings of wildlife. Wild water buffalo and wart hogs were everywhere we looked it seemed! As we looked closer in through the trees we could see all kinds of spotted deer and sambar deer, sometimes in herds of 50 or more.

Once we’d made our way a little bit into the park, our guide asked if it was OK that we go searching for the leopards first because they tend to make their way up into the trees pretty early in the morning to snooze the day away in the shade. We were all for that, the thought of catching a glimpse of an elusive leopard was just too enticing to pass up. We were driving along for what seemed like ages, all eyes on the bushes, scanning for any hint of spots or movement.

Out of sheer, amazing, incredible luck, a female leopard walked out of the bushes and right across the road only 20 meters up ahead of us. We crept up to where she had crossed and we found her sitting there by a little pond of water. She was absolutely majestic, just a couple meters away from where we sat. The incredible markings of her spots and the sheer strength and feline grace that she exuded took our breath away.. we could hardly believe our luck! We got a couple minutes to take in her beauty and snap a few pictures before she was up and leisurely sauntering away.

We moved along a little ways to the spot where our guide thought she might emerge from the trees again and we waited to see if she might grace us again with her beauty. We waited for quite a while and decided to make another loop around the area to see if maybe she’d changed directions. In the end we made it back just in time to see her tail vanish again into the bushes, but that was OK, we’d gotten our time with her and we were grateful for it! Our guide informed us that there are only about 30 leopards in the entire protected area, which is part of the reason that they’re so hard to spot.. sometimes they go days without seeing any at all.

When we finally tore ourselves away from the leopard search, we had the good luck of coming across an incredibly photogenic young male elephant.

We rounded a bend in the road and there he was, munching away on the scrub bushes and small trees near the road. He emerged from the trees just a handful of meters away from our jeep and he just wandered around, striking a pose and looking for tasty goodies. When we were the only vehicle left, he came right over to the jeep, almost like he was greeting us, this incredibly gentle giant, looking us right in the eyes as he had a smiling expression on his lovely face.

Then he wandered off across the road into the bushes for more snacking. Our guide told us that elephants eat around 250 kilos of food and consume 85 - 90 litres of water each day!! No wonder he never stopped munching!!!

For the rest of the morning we drove around spotting more elephants, lots of monkeys, a giant crocodile, peacocks, a couple pelican storks and even an eagle!

We took a little break by the beach to visit with the others and snack on what was left of our breakfast. Then it was back in the jeeps to look around some more!

Photo Credit: Mitch Collins

After 6 blissful hours in the park, we were satisfied that we’d seen as many creatures as we could, as many of them had ventured further into the forest to escape the burn of the midday sun.

Most of the buffalo by that point were submerged in little mud and water pools that dot many of the fields and the areas near the roads. It’s pretty cute to see these big guys with only the tops of their heads and bodies poking out of the water.

We made the drive back to our guesthouses for some much-needed lunch, all that animal spotting can really work up an appetite and we were RAVENOUS!!

When we got back to Lake View Cottage, the owner met us at the door with fresh juice in hand and even offered for us to shower before checkout if we wanted to! We were already late for our checkout time so we decided to rough-it for the afternoon as we didn’t want to hold them up on turning over the room to new guests.. but hey, it’s the thought that counts! They really pulled out all the stops for us, including a complimentary watermelon to round out our lunch and a free lift to the bus station in town.

Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to another member of our group as the rest of us were heading on inland some more to explore Tea Country!! We’ll tell you all about stunning Ella next time!!!