Devil’s Staircase tour

Year and Month	January 2013
Number of Days	One
Crew	4 (between 20-25 years of age)
Accommodation	N/A
Transport	Motor Bicycles
Activities	Wildlife, Photography, off-road driving
Weather	Excellent
Route	Colombo -> Avissawella -> Ratnapura -> Balangoda -> Kalupahana -> Bambarakanda Waterfall -> Udaweriya -> Ohiya
Tips, Notes and Special remark	Use a good Motor Bicycle or a 4×4 vehicle Walking along the route is the best experience Cycling is also possible on this route Take enough water and foods Beware of slippery places No need of a guide There are no common facilities or even people at most of areas Start the journey early morning
Related Resources	Trip reports on Devil’s staircase
Author	MSRF
Comments	Discuss this trip report, provide feedback or make suggestions at Lakdasun Forum on the thread Devil’s Staircase tour

As per my experience, Devil’s Staircase road is the most hardest, dangerous and beautiful road in Sri Lanka. I knew about this on 2012 and I was lucky to visit there at the beginning of 2013. I got little information about this route conditions from Viraj Rathnapitiya and Dinesh Dekker in that time. Then we four got ready to face the challenges about our Motor bicycle tyres.

On that day we came from Visari Ella, Diyaluma, Beragala road and entered to the Bambarakanda road by 10am. However we started our journey from Kalupahana junction and proceed up to Bambarakanda fall, we spend little time there as one of our guys didn’t see this fall before. After that we started the Devil’s ride. On that time the whole route was gravel, uncomfortable and ugly road. Sometimes we had to ride over the 6-8inch highest stones. There is an area where named as a dangerous area since there might be patches on the tyres. We were slowly passed that area and entered to the V-cut. We had a small rest and took some photographs.

After that we again started the journey and successfully crossed the Bambarakanda water stream. That was a lovely experience since I still remember that our new guy how faced to that. Again we ride over mountains, gravel roads and came near to a small village. There we saw a beautiful waterfall at the dead end and took some photos and had another rest.

Again we started our journey and reached to Udaweriya by passing the Devil’s part and talked with a villager about the facilities in this area. That time the Udaweriya hospital was working like a dead man. Finally now we know that hospital was close down forever. There are 2-3 schools and around 250 children with 1400 population for the entire 16km area. There are no common facilities and their main occupation is tea plucking.

This road is having beautiful environment and sceneries as this was situated over too many of mountains and near to the HP boarder. Leopards Sambars, Wild boars are common animal lives in this area. There are no any specific camping place on this road and people can choose their own camping place but with own risk. Most suitable vehicles are motor bikes, 4×4 vehicles and Lorries; hence the duration for the entire route will be around 4-5 hours. If you want to walk along the road it will take about 7-9hours. If someone looking for a real hike, this might be the ideal solution for that.