Bambaragala plains is a beautiful environment system located in the East end of the highlands in Badulla Sri Lanka. It is a known place for beautiful Sun Rises and breathtaking sceneries of the below valley.
The objectives of this extreme meetup were to
1.explore this amazing environmental system 2.Update 360 photos of this beautiful scenery into Street View
3.Add Camping grounds to the maps 4. Mark the Trails etc 5.Capture beautiful photos of the area and upload to maps please be ready with your 360 cams as currently there is very limited 360 coverage there.
How to reach Babaragala plains
If you are coming from Badulla in public transport, travel from Pasara, Monaragala, Ampara, Pitamaruwa buses to 10 (around Rs. 50). Then take Kanuwa to Namunukula or Bandarawela buses (about Rs. 30). Get down near the club junction. Namunukula school also nearby…
If you are coming from Bandarawela, get down near the club junction in Basara buses.
You can reach the camping place with bikes and (4 x4) vehicles with good ground clearance. And maybe with a adventurus tuk tuk drver(Tuk tuks can even go to Mars)…
Map Issue : It’s not a hard place to find. But if you use Google maps, you will make a wrong turn and go to a dead end and then you have to come back and ask the road from villagers. It was no different to us. We went looking at google maps directions and end up in front of a Gate to private land. When we were trying to reverse back kind Landowner came and opened the gate for us so we could easily make a U-turn. He told us that many people who are visiting Babaragala plains get the direction wrong using Google maps. When I check the map I identified the problem. There is a Trail starting from a previous junction that runs towards the Babaragala plains. But it is not on the maps. So Google maps take you to the end of the local road which is the wrong route.
Good for the Landowner Google Sri Lanka Local Guides came to the rescue. We promised him to add the correct trail to the maps and soon he won’t have to worry about random people turning up at his gate asking for the directions to Babaragalapathana.
We went back and found the trail and ride along with it. Good for us our 4*4 had good ground clearance. It’s not a long trail. But the last stretch is pretty steep and full of rocks. It took us 30 mins to reach the top. By the time we reach there, it was getting dark. The cold started surrounding us. We quickly set camp. Then immediately we lit a campfire. It was getting pretty cold.
We relaxed a bit and watched darkness fall on the valley below us. One by one light started to turn up from a very distance. But very soon mist started to cover all that.
Soon our stomachs started protesting. We quickly made dinner. Some noodles. Sausages , a meatball curry was on the stove in no time. We gather around the campfire and had our dinner. And we discussed a lot about the kind of issues we faced today when using maps and such Experiences of each other. When the food is finishing, songs and guitars came into action. @SupunW and @kasunaaa were really glad that we could start doing physical meetups again, go out to nature, and have a wonderful time as nature-loving local guides.
We all had a good time singing songs and went to bed very late.
We got up early and it was breath taking scenery in front of us. Sun was covered with clouds but it created a magical atmosphere with mist flowing in the valley beneath us. Smoke rising from the bond fire from last night. Our friendly Doggy guides were sleeping by the fire. I don’t have enough words to describe the beauty. So I let few photos to give you an idea. But nothing could do justice to what we saw in our own eyes.
We prepared morning tea and our usual breakfast Grain mix “Samaphosha” . Then we shoot 360 photos. We spent a good amount of time exploring the beautiful mountain terrain.
Then we map the off-road trail as we promised to the that poor landowner who gets annoyed by visitors coming to his gate due to wrong map directions.
After having so much fun and a good time it was time to leave. We said goodbye to that beautiful place and our Doggy guide and headed back after completing another wonderful extreme meet-up.
Album Click Here
Video
Streetview updates Click Here
@KashifMisidia hope you enjoy this. We had to do another without you. Hope we could do this together one day. @JaneBurunina @Ddimitra @Erna_LaBeau @PaulPavlinovich @Nyainurjanah @IlankovanT @AnuradhaP hope you enjoy this.
