Moorhouses on the Move: Moorhouses on Safari! (Yala, Bundala, Udawalawe, & Wilpattu National Parks)

After some fantastic beach days, we switched into safari mode. We traveled on to Tissamaharama, a convenient jumping off point for safaris in Yala and Bundala National Parks. Sri Lanka has some of the best wildlife viewing opportunities outside of Africa, and we were really excited to visit some of the country's national parks to see what we could see.

Our first safari was to Yala National Park. This is the second largest and most visited national park in the country, and the traffic jam of jeeps outside the park entrance at 5:30 AM was proof of this.

Eventually we made it through the main gate and started off on our safari.

We watched the sunrise over the park, which was a beautiful start to the morning.

This is a jungle fowl, which is the national bird of Sri Lanka. It looks kind of like a rooster but is much more colorful.

These are wild boars.

We all got excited when we started to see elephants....some of them extremely up close!

At one point, we came across a pack of elephants with several females and a couple of young calves.

Some of them got really close to our jeep as they were eating nearby. One even brushed up against our jeep, right next to Emmett.

Yala is one of the parks with the highest chances of spotting a leopard. However, the leopards are moving further and further into the park and so leopard spottings are not as common as they once were. Apparently there is a leopard way off in this tree.....according to our driver, who had plenty of time to tell us as we waited in a massive jeep traffic jam for a chance to get this view. None of us could really see the leopard, though, so we don't really count that we saw one.

We did see a lot of beautiful birds, especially near a large lake.

We saw peacocks everywhere! Lots of times they were still in the trees after having spent the night there.

There was also this giant crocodile....we thought one of the birds at the lake above might become his breakfast, but he just sat in the water after moving from the shore.

Yala National Park borders the coast, so we were never very far from the Indian Ocean.

We saw mongooses and eagles, as well.

Here is a large monitor lizard in a tree.

And here is an even bigger one digging in the ground just beside the road.

While we would really have loved to have seen a leopard more closely, we all judged our first Sri Lankan safari to be a success.

The next morning, we got up early again to head to Bundala National Park. Bundala is particularly known for its population of birds, rather than animals such as elephants and leopards. It is also much less touristed than Yala....we arrived right at park opening time and there were all of 3 other jeeps there. No traffic jams, no waiting in line to see far off animals.....it was much calmer, which we really enjoyed.

We saw another beautiful Sri Lankan sunrise.

And several different species of monkeys.

And lots more peacocks.....one with his feathers all open, and he was even dancing (which the males do to attract females to mate)!

More beautiful birds, some of which I do not remember the names of.

I know (because Colin told me) that this is a snake bird. He was the only bird we'd see that kept its wings open while it was sitting on a tree.

More jungle fowl.

And some beautiful green parrots!

These are Painted Storks.

This bird reminded me of NW Florida because he was just soaring over the water, looking for fish to eat. I'd see birds like this all the time growing up on Pensacola Bay.

This guy was eating his breakfast, which appeared to be a lizard of some sort.

This is a White-throated Kingfisher.

We also saw water buffalo and a couple of deer, including a beautiful buck.

The star of the morning, however, was this python. I have NO idea how our guide spotted him, since he was tucked behind a bunch of brush. He looked pretty big and was really cool.

We stopped at the ocean for a break and saw a sea turtle swimming in the breaking waves. He's hard to see in this picture, but he's in there!

We were really glad that we visited Bundala National Park, and we really enjoyed the peaceful and relaxed atmosphere (as compared to the craziness at Yala National Park).

We left Tissamaharama and moved close to Udawalawe National Park, which is further inland. Udawalawe is known, in particular, for its large elephant populations. The day before visiting the park, we spent a few hours at the Elephant Transit Home. To get there (by tuk tuk), we passed by the Udawalawe Reservoir, which was quite beautiful in itself.

The Elephant Transit Home, which lies within the boundaries of Udawalawe National Park, was created in 1995 by the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife Conservation. Its main goal is to care for and rehabilitate orphaned elephant calves so that they can be released back into the park. Elephant calves are cared for until they are 5 years old, and the center has returned over 100 elephants back into Udawalawe National Park to date.

The elephants come into the center's feeding area every few hours to eat.

A few elephants are allowed to come in at a time, and they first get a milk-based drink.

This baby elephant was too small to be fed like the others, so he was fed by hand with a big bottle-like contraption. Pretty much the cutest thing ever.

After the milk, the elephants munch on leaves and branches.

This video shows some of the elephants coming in to eat, including one very eager baby.

After watching the elephants feed, we walked through a small but well-done exhibit that gave lots of information about elephants and conservation efforts in Sri Lanka. There was also this elephant skeleton which was really impressive.

The next morning, we got up early again for our safari into Udawalawe National Park, where we saw another beautiful sunrise and peacocks sitting in trees.

And more elephants! Lots of them.

Plus some close up monkeys and a chameleon in a nearby bush.

With our third safari over, we were starting to feel like professional safari-ers.

After a late breakfast, we decided to visit Wawulpane Cave, which was advertised at our hotel as a tourist attraction featuring an underground waterfall and 250,000 bats. From the hotel's display, it looked fairly well-visited and easy to find. The hotel called a tuk-tuk for us, and we set off on what (we thought) would be about a 25-minute drive.

2 hours later......after lots of turn arounds, stops to ask for directions, and off-road tuk-tuking......we still hadn't arrived at the caves and were pretty much completely lost out in the Sri Lankan countryside. We saw an old man on the side of the road, and when our tuk-tuk driver asked him for help he offered to take us to the caves, which were apparently relatively close by at this point. So we set off through the woods with an elderly, barefoot Sri Lankan man guiding us all.

We soon passed by signs for the cave, which confirmed our suspicion that this site was now much less touristed than we originally thought (apparently our hotel needed to update its sign in several ways).

Due solely to our elderly guide's knowledge and guidance, we found the caves. The sounds and smells of bats were really strong, so we didn't go far into the cave but instead poked around a bit at the entrance.

We climbed/hiked on to another cave, all the while marveling at the fact that our guide was doing this all barefoot. We Westerners are so weak.

Eventually, our guide led us back to our tuk-tuk, at which time we thanked him with a small tip. The look of surprise on his face and the gratitude that he showed us sparked some good conversations with the boys about how seemingly small amounts (to us) mean very different things to people in different situations around the world.

Wilpattu National Park, which is the largest national park in Sri Lanka, was the site of our last safari. Originally we had not planned to visit this park, but at the very end of our time in Sri Lanka we changed our mind and added in a visit. It was a calm park with only a few other jeeps riding around. While we unfortunately didn't see any leopards there, we did see some more beautiful birds....

And, like in all the other national parks--lots of peacocks!

We also saw quite a few spotted deer.

We saw what (we think) was a fox of some kind.

And also lots of monkeys, including one baby that looked like it had been born the same morning! We've seen a lot of monkeys in SE Asia, but none as brand new as this little guy.

This picture makes me think of all my dear mom friends. As the mom monkey was attending to her baby, the other monkey was watching and occasionally picking bugs out of the mom monkey. Even monkeys need friends to help them out and keep them company. :)

We are not exactly sure which type of animal this is. In this picture it looks kind of like a deer, but in person it looked different from the other deer we saw.....