This meet up was organized in support to @OSAMA , on his worldwide Geowalk. I could see many Sri Lankan Local Guides hosting several meetups at several other places. I was one of them to host the Colombo Geowalk in Sri Lanka. The event was planned to be started at 8 o’clock in the morning. @AntanO joined me at the given location as early as 7.50 am and we have conversation on several subjects. Waiting for quite a long time and as no one turned up, we thought of starting the walk. Just before beginning, Anton mentioned about a church that is still in the map which hasn’t even seen the existence of such a church. So we decided to go to that place, double check and delete it from the map. Then only something clicked in my mind that the theme of Osama’s worldwide go walk was to identify the hidden gem. My urge of searching the church was triggered by this and we both started walking towards that specific location. The path, as specified in the map was not even of 6 meters width, we walked along the path but still, we couldn’t find the place. Losing hope, we decide to walk back and delete the place from the map. While we were about to leave, we could site the church being hidden behind a building. We both were excited and started walking in, looking at each other’s faces with suspense. After having a look around, reading all the boards, Anton explained me the facts about the church and its existence.
Being accomplished with the hidden gem search, we started our walk. Suddenly I got a call from @Nareshwar asking how is the meet up progressing, he was on his way to join us at that time. When Naresh turned up, we decided to have a typical Geowalk. Naresh, has joined me in certain meet-ups before this. He has a specific interest on mapping of railway stations all around the country as well as editing in Tamil. Naresh came up with the amusement of the day saying that his mother was even surprised to see him wake up early as 7.30 in the morning just to join the meet up at 8. His normal routine on weekends is waking up after 10 am he told ![]()
This was the first time of Naresh and Anton to meet each other in person. However, Naresh knew about Anton. when we were at a meet up at Hikkaduwa, I was telling about the specialties of each and every fellow Sri Lanka local guides to Naresh. He remembered that.
The Geowalk went well with many discussion and useful edits. We ended the event with a simple breakfast at a cafe. They came along with me, left me home and they went walking towards their home.


