Horton Plains

Located over 2000 meters above sea level, Horton Plains National Park is a location no true nature-lover visiting Sri Lanka should miss. This mosaic of grasslands and cloud forests captures the heart of a visitor with its cool, fresh air and plentiful wildlife. Adorning this landscape are the sheer precipices—World’s End and Mini World’s End—along with the unmistakable landmark that is Baker’s Falls.

There are two major entrances to the national park, one being Ohiya and the other Pattipola, from where we (me, along with my family) entered on a clear sunny day in January, 2024. Due to the sheer altitude of the park, the temperature remained at a comfortable level despite the blazing sun. We had to admit that the one to design the sign at the entrance had done a rather creative job.

Now here’s a piece of advice if you plan on visiting the park yourself: stay off the grass! It is a sensitive and valuable ecosystem, and you should rather stick to the paths that cut through the park instead of trampling innocent plants.

Horton Plains National Park is a location no true nature-lover visiting Sri Lanka should miss.

The Grand Tours

The first part of the park is paved and vehicle-accessible, until you reach the car park. Afterwards, the path is mostly unpaved, and it is quite tough to navigate through at certain points. Keep this in mind if your company includes children or the elderly. At times, you might have to step across small streamlets on foot, so make sure your footwear can deal with a few inches of water. In general, though, it should be noted that this isn’t a particularly difficult hike compared to some of the more complicated hikes available in Sri Lanka. An interesting addition is the system of guide posts they have introduced to warn the trekkers of the difficulty level of the path at certain points. It honestly felt quite cool, and gave us a sense of playing a video game with variable difficulty levels.

In the central region of the park is the ticket counter, along with the car park, where we made sure to take a well deserved snack-and-toilet break. Nature has a strange way of rewarding those who love it most, and we were greeted by an endemic Sri Lanka Swallow (Cecropis hyperythra) nesting under the washroom roof. Next to the car park, there was a canteen along with a signpost giving the distances and directions to the nearest towns. An interesting feature of the area was the presence of a few tall coniferous trees, which were likely brought from abroad and planted there. The native vegetation at this altitude consists of mostly short, crooked trees and various kinds of grass. The uniqueness of this national park is, in part, due to its grassland expanse speckled with patches of cloud forest.

It would be quite interesting to briefly go over the history of this famous national park. Originally called Maha Eliya (i.e. The Great Plain), this region was renamed after Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton during the period of British colonialism in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon). But the history of the human habitation in the region appears to be much older, as indicated by the presence of stone tools belonging to the stone-age inhabitants of the island. The Horton Plains were designated as a wildlife sanctuary in 1969, and declared a national park on the 18th of March, 1988. The park now covers 3160 hectares, or approximately 32 square kilometers. The Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, which includes the Horton Plains, is considered a natural World Heritage Site for its biodiversity value. Now let’s turn back towards our trek through this wonderful region.

Moving along the road from the car park, you will encounter a split in the road, where you’d be forced to make a choice. Either would allow you to see the three main landmarks within the park, so it is a matter of which one you’d want to see first. We decided to take the path to the right, and see Baker’s Falls first. We wouldn’t miss anything, though, as we would use the other path on our way back. We braced for a rather long hike, cutting through the grassland on our way to Baker’s Falls. As it wasn’t a particularly busy day, we were soon almost entirely on our own, and at times there were no other human souls as far as the eye could see. It was a refreshing break from the hustle and bustle of civilization. A stream of clear water, known as the Belihul Oya followed us, which was intercepted by an anicut at one point. Although it was a man-made structure, they had done a good job at making it look well integrated with the surrounding natural environment. Everything here felt well-design with both purpose and aesthetics in mind. We later learned that the pool formed immediately downstream from the anicut was known as Chimney Pool. It was an interesting mini-landmark on our way to see the more famous ones.

Baker’s Falls can be reached by entering a region of dense forest from the grassland, and travelling through it for a while. It is a waterfall with a rather awkward shape, for it is wider than it is tall. We stayed there for a while to snap some selfies, as one does at such places. It wasn’t a particularly tall waterfall either, being only around 20 meters tall.

Once we left Baker’s Falls, it was more or less a long hike through the plains, and by this point, the sun had gotten rather oppressively hot, giving the entire place a rather different vibe. At times, it honestly felt more walking through a desert, although there was some appeal to it. As we were getting tired, we moved on without uttering many words. The ground was generally quite dry, but the path had contained some puddles from a stream that ran along it at one point. Let me just say that traversing that part wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.

The other rather unpleasant thing that happened to me in this area was my camera suddenly losing its ability to function properly. In all my time using it before that point, it had been a very reliable and resilient little creature, so I was naturally very worried. I soon realised that it had heated up beyond its operating temperature range due to the direct sunlight beating down on its black body. I hid it under my shirt to keep it cool, and it was working after some minutes. Phew…

I could also capture a photo that would present the overall feeling of the park within a single frame, which I was grateful for. As you can see below, the path mostly runs through a grassland, but in the distance you almost always notice the dark forest of trees growing close together. Near the edge of the road, there’s usually some taller grass, and the grassland itself is often speckled with small woody shrubs. If you’re lucky, you might find a bird in the shrubs, like we did. The bird was not very fond of humans though.

Now, this feels like an appropriate point to comment on the fauna that inhabit this national park. The park is said to contain around 24 species of mammals, 87 species of birds, 6 species of reptiles and 15 species of amphibians. This is somewhat on the lower end for a Sri Lankan national park, which is mostly due to the prohibitively high altitude of the park. However, the animals that are present in the park tend to be quite eye-catching. The most famous of these is possibly the Sambar Deer (Rusa unicolor), whose population has grown to a modest 1500-2000 by this point. Some of them have gotten used to humans as well. Feeding the animals, though, is not encouraged by authorities. The museum near the ticket counter contains some taxidermied specimens of Sambar Deer, along with those of other animal species. The park is considered an important area for endemic birds, reptiles, and amphibians as well. The Dull-Blue Flycatcher (Eumyias sordidus), seen in the 50 Rupee note, is a bird that occurs mostly in the Horton Plains region. However, no native species of fish are found in the park. The two species of fish found in the park are both introduced species. The national park is also home to some beautiful invertebrates, including numerous butterfly and dragonfly species.

Slowly, but surely, we reached the area where the Great World’s End was located, and the mist grew stronger. It is located at a higher altitude than the part of the park we walked through, so this was expected. Unfortunately, though, by the time we reached there, the mist had gotten so thick that we couldn’t see much beyond the precipice that was right in front of us. But it was still a fascinating sight, as the plants growing on the edge looked as if they were painted on an off-white canvas. It was a sight to behold. With nothing beyond them being visible, it indeed looked like the end of the world. The unassuming cloud of mist hid a cliff that fell 1200 meters down towards the tea estates below.

As there was not much of a view from the top, we decided to go ahead with our trek and take the route towards the Mini World’s End. Although not as nearly as magnificent as the Great World’s End, it was also a considerable cliff with a drop of around 300 meters . At that point, though, we had given up on the idea of getting a clear view of what was beyond the cliff.

As we expected, Mini World’s End was equally misted. Comparing the views, and the general atmosphere, I have to say that I liked this cliff more than its bigger brother. The mist shrouded cliff almost looked as if was inviting the onlooker to enter another realm, free from worldly concerns. After a brief rest, and having realised that we had visited all three of the main attractions of the park, we braced for a journey back. This time, however, it would be mostly through the forest, which was cooler and allowed us to explore a different atmosphere to that of the grasslands we had previously trekked through. The forest was a dark green, and on occasion it was adorned with specs of red here and there. The trees only grew to modest heights, with the canopy being around 20 meters tall. Almost all of them had epiphytes growing from their trunks and branches. It was a welcome change from the kind of vegetation we are used to seeing in other parts of the country.

As I talked about the fauna before, it would only be fair if I took a moment to elaborate a bit on the flora of this national park as well. The vegetation here is basically of two types, wet patana (Sinhalese for grassland and shrubland in mountainous areas), and montane evergreen forests. I have already elaborated the difference between these two types of vegetation and how they combined to create a beautiful mosaic of a landscape. Nearly 750 species of plants have been recorded from the park.

The most obvious and striking tree in the park Rhododendron arboreum, the flower of which in Sinhala is given the matching name, the ‘great red flower’ – Maharathmala (maha – great, rath – red, mal – flowers). It is a striking flower that is one of the major attractions of this national park. Endemic plants such as Calophyllum walkeri and Syzygium rotundifolium are also found within the park. The undergrowth consists of plants such as Strobilanthes.

The section of our journey through the forest soon gave way to rolling plains of grassland again, and we walked through the final leg of the journey, somewhat exhausted from the day’s hike as we were not regular hikers. The scenery kept on stunning us.

The sight of the tall conifers near the ticket counter signalled the end of our journey. Or so we thought. But once we got on the car and headed towards the Ohiya entrance, we had a few more sights waiting for us.

So you see, although the Rhododendrons were a major attraction of the park, I was unable to get a good shot of one so far. As someone who likes to record journeys using photos, this was deeply unsettling to me, so I tried looking for any traces of red among the leaves. I was grateful when my family joined me in this pursuit as well. As we were about to exit the park, and as all hope was almost lost, I was greeted by a genuinely pleasant surprise—a whole bunch of Rhododendron trees in bloom right next to the entrance.

I jumped out of the car to take a quick photo, and I even took some selfies with the flowers which were conveniently at eye level (which I won’t be sharing here, obviously). On our way out, we also got the chance to photograph a Sambar Deer, although it wasn’t a very close shot as the deer was rather far away. They were feeding on the grass, and took little notice of us as we passed by on our car, as they were probably accustomed to human activity in the park. With that, the sightseeing for the day came to a conclusion.

It is definitely a place we would consider visiting again, someday. It is not a place you can explore and experience within a few hours in a single trip. So until next time, goodbye, thee great plain !

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