Ella revisited

Year and Month	Nil Diya Pokuna Visit-2021 March 13th Ella revisited-2021 February 21 & 22nd
Number of Days	Two separate days
Crew	Arjuna, Kasun Shanaka, Kasun Lakmal, Vinoda, Nirosh and Myself
Accommodation	Tip Top Ella Hotel
Transport	By Car and Hiking
Activities	Caving, Hiking, Sightseeing and Photography
Weather	Excellent
Route	Nil Diya Pokuna Colombo->Mattala Highway Exit->Wellawaya-> Karandagolla->Ambadandegama Road->Nil Diya Pokuna
Tips, Notes and Special remark	Nil Diya Pokuna It is a half a day journey. You better coupled with some other place at Ella. It is compulsory to have a head torch to each and every one visit Nil Diya Pokuna. It is better have a local guide to visit at Nil Diya Pokuna. I can recommend Meththananda and his team as responsible guides. They provide head lamps and fix a rope to get into the opening. T.P.0726108392 The floor of the cave is wet most of the time and it’s more if it rains. It is safe to have a bath and swim at Nil Diya Pokuna. We carried an external flasher which was useful in getting photos in the dark. Your cloths might get dirty after creeping at Nil Diya Pokuna. Therefore better wear an old set of cloths. The place might get crowded during weekends. Ella It is prohibited to drive along the road of Little Adam’s peak. You have to park the vehicle at Ella-Passara road and walk from there. Details of common tourist attractions are in my previous report of Ella.
Related Resources	Lakdasun trip report-Ella full package Lakdasun trip reports –Nil Diya Pokuna
Author	Niroshan
Comments	Discuss this trip report, provide feedback or make suggestions at Lakdasun Forum on the thread Ella revisited

Nil Diya Pokuna Karandagolla / නිල්දිය පොකුණ කරදගොල්ල
Nil Diya Pokuna situated at Ella (exactly at Karandagolla, Rawana Ella Forest reserve.) is an amazing creature of the nature. The small opening on the earth brings you into a long cave with different paths and ends up at a pond of crystal clear water. Therefore it is called as Nil Diya Pokuna. The first publication about this pond at internet was Lakdasun trip report by Ashan in 2014. Meththananda was the person who has invented this cave and was the guide for Ashan and team. Since then it has become popular among travellers as an adventure journey.
Though I have been at Ella in several times Nil Diya Pokuna was not in my list. I arranged it as a separate journey. Nirosh who was my previous travel friend joined with us after a long time for Nil Diya Pokuna visit as he has been there few months ago. We started the journey from Colombo and got Nirosh from Hambanthota. After having breakfast from Wellawaya we have reached the place by 9am. As it was a Saturday number of groups were ready to explore Nil Diya Pokuna.
Two assistant guides of Meththananda came to the entrance with a rope and head torches. This entrance is situated about 1km from the road and there is a clear foot path. (There is another entrance to the cave don’t know where it is).
First we entered to the cave with assistance of the rope (3/4m) and then it was a descend over a ladder (3/4m). This was the only difficult / adventure part of this journey. Rest of the journey was through the wide lime stone cave and it has ups and downs. There was a place which can accommodate about 100 people. Our guides have shown different shapes made on the roof of the cave. Surprisingly we didn’t notice any bats inside the cave compared to other lime stone caves.

Beginning of foot path.

I am ready to get into the cave…. Note they have attached the rope to a nearby tree.

.	Once we entered the cave

Get on to the ladder

Inside the cave

Steps following the ladder

Descend in the cave

Roof of the cave

There are different shapes over the ceiling of lime stone cave

With lime stone wall

The team

A narrow part of the cave path

So called stalactites. The formations which hang from the ceiling of the cave.

Stalactites.

After walk about 500m within the cave we have reached Nil Diya Pokuna…..The pond of crystal clear water. Our guide has shown the safety to have a bath at place. Then we have enjoyed the place having a bath and it was the end of the journey. We met another two sets of group in our return journey and there was a traffic at the entrance as it was the bottle of the neck.

Nil Diya Pokuna

Crystal clear water at Nil Diya Pokuna. You can see the bottom of the pond as well.

Enjoying….

The team at Nil Diya Pokuna

End of the journey

The bath on our way back to Colombo.

Ella is a main tourist destination of Sri Lanka. Ella rock, Little Adam’s peak and Bambaragama Falls (famous Rawana Falls) are common tourists attractions at Ella. I have been at Ella before and this is my third visit to Ella.
We have approached Ella from Wellawaya side via highway and visited Bambaragama Falls before enter Ella town.

Bambaragama Falls / බඹරගම ඇල්ල (Famous Rawana Falls) (Revisited) (6.841112, 81.054886)
Bambaragama Falls (Famous Rawana Falls) is the most attractive place of Ella as it is situated at Ella-Wellawaya road. Almost every visitors stop at this place to get a picture with this waterfall. This time I reached more closer to Bambaragama Falls to get pictures with it’s lower falls.

Bambaragama Falls

With Bambaragama Falls

The bridge over Kirindi Oya

Lower most part of Bambaragama Falls

Tip Top Ella Hotel (6.881574, 81.065723)
This was our accommodation at Ella. Tip top Ella is a newly built hotel facing to the railway track including nine arch bridge. (Compared to most hotels facing Ella Gap). We drove along Ella-Passara road (B113) and turned to Yahalewela Road. This by road is fairly narrow and difficult to pass two vehicles at once.
It was a calm and quite place and we were the only guest for the day. (We got to know they opened the hotel one week ago). Infinity pool, view of nine arch bridge and Ella Rock are the main attractions of Tip Top Ella hotel.

One of the hall marks of Tip Top Ella hotel

Infinity pool

View from the pool of hotel

.	View from the pool of hotel

Ella Rock

The train passing nine arch bridge.

A train passing nine arch bridge…..

The tunnel at other end….

Aerial view of Tip Top Ella hotel

Ella rock and Nine arch bridge

Infinity Pool

Little Adam’s Peak / Punchi Siri Pade / පුoචි සිරිපාදේ (revisited) (6.863266, 81.065029)
Little Adam’s peak is situated at Ella-Passara road in 1km from Ella town. No vehicles are allowed to drive on this estate road as it is a narrow road. We have parked the car at the park in front of Ella flower garden hotel. New addition of this route is flying Rawana Zip line which is the longest Zip line of South East Asia.
We were able to view the sun set from Little Adam’s peak and could get some aerial pictures under low light condition. We didn’t move from first peak to others as it was late evening.

The route to Little Adam’s peak has modified now.

Ella Gap is formed by Little Adam’s peak (left side) and Ella Rock (right side)

On top of Little Adam’s peak. Ella-Wellawaya road and Ella rock are seen behind.

On top of Little Adam’s peak.

Buddha statue placed at Punchi Siripade

Enjoying the sun set

Sun set over Ella Rock

Silhouette

Aerial view of Little Adam’s peak

Towards 98 Acres hotel

Towards Ella town

Ella-Wellawaya road and Ella Edge hotel

Ella gala / Ella Rock

We are on top of Punchi Siripade

Bridge of Nine Arch (revisited) (6.876729, 81.060866)
Tip top Ella Hotel is situated closer to Bridge of Nine Arch and this time our approach along the rail track. There are three ways to get photographs with Nine arch bridge: at Demodara end, at Ella end and under the bridge. Tunnel number 40 is situated at the Ella end of Bridge of Nine arch and it is another good photo location.

Heading to Bridge of Nine Arch along the rail track

Bridge of Nine Arch

Bridge of Nine arch from Demodara end

Over the bridge

Over the bridge….

Over the bridge

Under the bridge….

Under the bridge

The rail track

Tunnel number 40

Other end of tunnel number 40

Tip top Ella hotel is seen to railway track

You will come across Bridge of five arches after nine arch bridge (towards Demodara side). Gotuwala Ella (ගොටුවල ඇල්ල) (6.882837, 81.065343) is situated adjacent to Bridge of five arches. On our way back to hotel we have reached Bridge of five arches but had a wasp attack there (this was my second wasp attack). Luckily there was a “Peela” -පීල්ල nearby and we sat under the water to get protection from wasps

Gotuwala Ella with low water level

Aerial view of Bridge of Nine arches

Nine arches are well seen in this picture

Ella Rock / Ella Gala (ඇල්ල ගල) (revisited) (6.856098, 81.053155)
This is my third visit to Ella rock but the approach was same through Kithal Ella railway station. We have parked the vehicle few hundred meters before Kithal Ella station and walked from there. We hardly came across travellers hike Ella rock on that day. The only new addition was forest department office built at top of Ella rock might be in view of ticket issuing. We have visited both viewpoints of Ella rock. I couldn’t fly the drone here as wind was so fast at Ella rock.