Govindahela (Westministers Abbey) and waterfalls of Badalkumbura

A long awaited dream…
Sometime ago while traveling on Ampara – Siyambalanduwa road I saw a giant box shaped rock and got to know the name “Govindahela”. I was fascinated to climb it but had literally no information about it. Later found an article on Lakdasun forum written by a foreign lady who climbed the rock. But that article was not very encouraging as her experience turned out to be a very tough and difficult one. A couple of years later suddenly there came a report on the forum by – of course – Ahsan, who had climbed it, alone, with not much hassle and once again I started living in my dream. But the year 2013 obstructed me with bad weather a several times and kept me away from fulfilling my dream. But this time however I found a way to sneak through.

The looooong ride…
The whole country was still in holiday mood on the weekend following Sinhala – Tamil New Year festival. The roads were empty, free from traffic jams, so I got into a Monaragala Bus from Pettah bus stand expecting a rather quick journey and fewer crowds. But surprisingly the bus was full when it left the bus stand and was packed when it passed Kaduwela. I had no problems with that since I was in a comfortable corner but I wasn’t comfortable with the speed bus traveled at all. It was one of the slowest bus journeys I have ever had and it took ages to get to my destination, Buttala where I was to meet Ashan for our first day’s excursion.

A quick connection…
I got down from Buttala starved to death as I had not eaten anything for many hours and annoyed by the long ride, badly wanting to have something to eat. I called Ashan who had come there after his morning duty and went towards the bus stand just to find him waving his hands from an already leaving bus signaling me to get in to it. Left out with no other option than getting in, I quickly caught the connection to Badalkumbura. It was a great relief to know that Ashan had bought us lunch packs. It took more than 30 minutes to get to Punsisigama where we got down.

Waterfalls of Menik Ganga…
We hired a three wheeler to reach two waterfalls formed of the Menik ganga river situated close to each other. With a banging subwoofer behind and a smoking driver in front of us, we got to the starting point of the stairway to the waterfall. The stairs got us only to the river where some villagers were bathing and we went a little further along the river to get to the top of the Pareviyan ella.

The path to the river

First of the many cascades right at the bottom of the stairway

View from the top of Pareviyan Ella

Pareviyan Ella cascading point

Then we took the footpath to the base of the fall. Though we thought the water level would be low since it was the dry season, Pareviyan Ella had enough water thanks to a few recent showers in the area.

On the way down to teh base

Pareviyan Ella

The falls and its 70 feet deep base pool

It was lovely

Top part of the right side fall

The base

.	Left side part plunging down

.	Ancient rock steps on teh other side of the fall

It was too sunny and difficult to capture at slow shutter speeds

Amazing rock formations…

Along this part of the river we came across some amazing rock formations. The turbulent waters of the river had beautifully crafted the rocks into many shapes, smoothly polished rock slabs and some scary looking pits with depths of many feet. Some multicolored rock surfaces also were among these wonders.

Through a small cannyon

Scary looking

A deep hole carved in

Shapes

Colors

A rock slab

smoooooooth…

wow

Beautiful

Enjoying the views of the rock formations and some mini cascades we trek another short distance down the river to come to the top of the Dunhinda falls of Menik River. It seems like the name “Dunhinda” is common to some fantastic looking waterfalls of Uva province. As Ashan said there is another waterfall named Dunhinda formed of the menik river further up. This Dunhinda wall was a real beauty with a good height. It looked like it was at least 30 or 40 meters in height.

Going down along the river

Pareviyan ella framed

lovely

a mini cascade

another beautiful cascade

Dunhinda cascading point and a mini cascade

wow	Dunhinda plunges down

wow she’s a beauty

.

The top

Mini waterfall

WOW

.

sadly, only the side view…

gorgeous…

and the river flows on…

.

The base

.

This cascade was lovely

another cascade

Ambitious but…

Dunhinda fall was plunging down the sheer vertical drop off a wide rock slab. As it seemed it would create a mighty wide fall during the rainy season. There was no path to the base of the fall and both sides of the fall also had a sheer vertical drop as same as the falls itself. It looked too dangerous to descend directly, so we came up with an ambitious plan to reach the base of the pool. Our plan was to climb up the hill on the left side of the falls and then find a way down from the other side.

With Ashan leading the way, we set off for a very hectic mission than we thought. The climb was serious, the undergrowth was thick, and the soil was loose and slippery and on top of all it was extremely hot and humid making us sweaty as sweaty can be. After a short time we came across a large boulder blocking our way which we tried to avoid by going around it. Then we saw a slope towards the river and started going down. Crawling down a couple of rocks we came to a small clear area where we could see outside just to find all our efforts has gone in vain. We were still on top of the fall and more annoyingly further behind than our starting point. We had no idea where we lost our direction. We were short of energy and time for going back and search for a different path. So we decided to bare the disappointment and to refresh ourselves. After coming back to the place where we saw the villagers were bathing we jumped into the river and had our lunch. It was great to have a dip in the chest height cool water after a hectic day.

Going back

The oasis…

what a lovely place to have a cool dip

wow

The time has come…

Of course, to fulfill my long awaited dream I was excited. Wanted to leave Monaragala as early as possible but the 1st bus to Ampara was leaving Monaragala at 6.30 in the morning. But on that day it seemed to be either missing or late. So we got into a Buddama bus and got down from 9th milepost junction after about 1.5 hours journey, then walked about another 600 – 700 meter to our destination.

The rock was standing majestically under the morning sun very close to the road and the temple at the base of it was right by the roadside. We spoke to the chief monk and informed that we are going to climb the rock and set off. The first part was a nice easy walk through a lovely forest patch. Though it was the dry zone, it had fairly good undergrowth.

direction board

The giant

The temple

here we go

shady path

lovely path

After crossing two streams over the remains of – what used to be – bridges over them the climb got steep and got steeper in no time. We were ascending along the rock steps and in some places along the footpath over the rocks. It was just the morning and was very shady inside the jungle but we were already soaked with sweat. After about one hours walk we came to the base of the rock where we saw the gigantic rock wall standing to the sky above us through a small opening in the tree canopy.

once a bridge…

how we crossed it

.	it was a lovely forest

wild flowers

well, there were ferns

a rock cave

flat areas were extremely rare

the path

arched

sun wastrying hard to sneak through the tree cannopy

steep

and a glimpse of our destination…

The climb got harder after this point until we met the mighty rock wall itself. It was a 90 degree vertical rock surface challenging us. We would not have climbed it if not for the six iron ladders placed at the most difficult parts. The ladders were not in very good shape except for a couple of them. We climbed them cautiously to reach the “sulang kapolla” where we were offered a great view towards the east coast.

the first two ladders. had to keep the camera inside for some time from this point onwards

what we saw at the sulang kapolla

Towards east coast over the Konduru hela

we came along this drop…

Dream fulfilled…

Another short climb after the sulang kapolla took us to the top of the rock. I was ecstatic by the fact that I fulfilled my long awaited dream and by the mesmerizing view unfolded in front of us. It was a grand panoramic view stretching over many miles towards all directions.

The awesome we greated us at the top…

WOW…

a pano

Towards Siyambalanduwa

.

the large pond carved into the rock at the forst view point

.

towards Monaragala over Muthukandiya

Muthukandiya reservoir zoomed. Maragala kanda is seen faintly in the backdrop

9th milepost junction, Buddama road and Ampara road seen

The king’s seat (Rajaasanaya)

the elevation

Magnifiscent…

Govindahela…

The 558m tall iconic monadnock in Siyambalanduwa, a far corner of the Uva province is easily identifiable unmistakably from anywhere you see it. The rock not only a natural phenomenon but also has a long history. It is said to have existed as a fortress of an ancient king – as I read, a king named Buwanekabahu. But I could not find more information to determine which Buwanekabahu this was, as the information I read in couple places were confusing. However it is obvious why this place was chosen as a fortress by whomever the king. Its natural unreachable formation and the excellent view towards all directions would have made it an ideal stronghold.

Later the Englishmen named it “Westministers Abbey” due to its shape. Today the rock is known by both names.

Still there are remains of ancient structures. We saw about five ponds carved into the rock and another large pond on top of the rock. The rock walls of that pond are still in good shape. There were many other ruins and some inscriptions as well. We also could witness the treasure hunter’s leftovers, some of very recent activities.

ruined pun kalasa

this moonstone was in very good shape

the large pond

rock walls of the pond

.	another moonstone, faded…

Pillars

someone has tried to read the inscription very recently

another pond carved into the rock

another one

looked like carrying water to the pond

vandalized

one more…

After spending nearly one and half hours enjoying the endless stunning views from all four view points and roaming around the jungle patch on top of the rock we started getting down. The first thing we did after getting down was informing the monks about the evidences of recent treasure hunting activities we saw.

a pano from teh second view point

first view point seen from the second

the drop of forst view point

what a view…

towards wadinagala range

Wadinagala peak zoomed. Jayanthi lake and Gal Oya reservoir seen

Jayanthi lake in front and Gal oya reservoir in back with Walasgala mountain in between them and mount Inginiyagala behind it

from the view point #3

lovely

wow

.

.

mind blowing scenaries

lovely…

third view point seen from the fourth view point

towards east

the two man team

the king should have felt ‘Majestic’ with the view in front of him…

the last one

And a video clip of our hike -

Thank you for reading.