Sri Lanka Rally 2020 | Day 5 | Yala to Udawalawe | Bespoke Rallies

Our stay in Yala was very relaxing.  Many of the participants enjoyed a stroll along the beach and met a local resident “short tail” the elephant, who occasionally wanders into the hotels looking for food.

We headed off mid morning and managed to get less than a kilometre down the road on an unmade track before one of our group managed to ground their car on the soft sand. We soon towed them out and were on our way again.

Our drive to Udawalawe was relatively short, 98 Km’s on good roads, we spotted monkeys and land monitors on the road and as we approached Udawalawe we drove past a stunning reservoir and dam.

Before reaching the hotel we visited Udawalawe National Park. We had a number of jeeps waiting for us at the entrance to take us through the park. This is one of the best elephant sanctuaries in the world with over 400 elephants in 30,000 hectares. We were less than 5 minutes into the park before we saw our first herd of elephants.  We also saw peacocks displaying their feathers, jackals, monkeys, water buffalo, crocodiles and a multitude of birds.

After our Safari we had a warm welcome at the Grand Udawalawe Safari Resort our home for one night.