Horton Plains – World’s End Trail
Horton Plains sits between 2,100 and 2,300 metres – high enough for ground frost in February and a mean temperature of just 13 degrees. The 9-kilometre loop crosses open grassland and stunted cloud forest to World’s End, where the plateau stops dead above an 870-metre drop and, on a clear early morning, the view runs to the southern coast. This high plateau is also the source of three of Sri Lanka’s great rivers – the Mahaweli, the Kelani and the Walawe. The return passes Baker’s Falls, named after Sir Samuel Baker, the Victorian explorer who lived in the hills near Nuwara Eliya before his African expeditions. Plastic is banned inside the park after sambar deer died eating litter, so bags are checked at the gate.
Knuckles Mountain Range – Guided Cloud Forest Trek
This trek keeps to the western side of the Knuckles, setting out from the Knuckles Conservation Centre at Deanston. The Dothalugala trail climbs into true cloud forest – stunted, moss-wrapped trees, tree ferns and orchids, and a stillness broken only by the calls of endemic birds. It is also home ground for the leaf-nosed lizard, Ceratophora tennentii, found in this forest and nowhere else on earth. Beyond the trees the route opens onto Pitawala Pathana, a wind-combed montane grassland of rock pools and wildflowers, and ends at Mini World’s End, a 1,192-metre escarpment where the land drops away towards the Matale valleys. Your naturalist tunes the distance to the group on the day.