We were all super excited waking up to go on an elephant safari in Udawalawe national park. The jeep was due to leave at 6am from our guesthouse. So armed with a packed breakfast and a bottle of water each off we set. It was only the 5 of us in an 8 or 10 seater jeep which was great. It’s not cheap doing the safari, well by Sri Lankan budget travel it’s not cheap. It cost us 10,000 rupee all in for the trip, about €67. We stopped at the park and picked up a guide who was included in the price.

The first thing we noticed was peacocks roosting in the trees. I never knew they could fly! They looked pretty majestic up in the trees with their tails hanging down. We saw a few flying overhead too, they can’t fly very high, just enough to get in the trees. Also learned that a female is called a peahen, never knew that! You learn something new every day :-). We saw loads of peacocks doing their mating dance for the laydeeees. Like this one:

Then we stopped at a watering hole to see some buffalo almost completely submerged with birds on their backs. The kids loved them.

It didn’t take long to spot some elephants, we saw some right beside the road chomping away on grass. It was cool to see them so close, only about 3 metres from the jeep.

I think our most dramatic moment was when Dervie dropped little brown Ted (her teddy) out of the jeep about 5 metres from a huge bull elephant. She proceeded to burst into tears. The guide said something to the driver and the driver manoeuvred the jeep forwards and backwards till he was right beside Ted. The elephant was happily ignoring us and chomping away. But the minute the driver opened the door and grabbed Ted, the elephant raised his trunk, moved his ears forward and made as if he was going to charge. Bit scary. Once the door was shut and he could see no threat again, he was fine. The guide explained that the elephants were used to the jeeps and saw them as one being almost. The minute you got out though, they were threatened. Little brown Ted was put in my bag for the rest of he safari.

The next bit of excitement was when we were at a big watering hole/small lake looking at more buffalo. Ro noticed a commotion at one side, then saw a crocodile grab a bird and proceed to drown it under water and have it for dinner. Very exciting :-). Afraid we don’t have any pics of him, was too fast.

We saw plenty more elephants and loads of beautiful, colourful birds. It’s well worth the trip if you get the chance. We didn’t spot a leopard unfortunately, they’re pretty hard to spot apparently. Yala national park is supposed to be better for leopards. But I think we all agreed that Udawalawe was a real treat with beautiful scenery and plenty of wildlife. We loved it.