Horton Plains national park is a beautiful, silent, strange world with some excellent hikes in the shadows of Sri Lanka\u2019s second and third highest mountains, Kirigalpotta (2395m) and Thotapola (2359m). The \u2018plains\u2019 themselves for man undulating plateau over 2000m high, covered by wild grasslands and interspersed with patches of thick forest, rocky outcrops, filigree waterfalls and misty lakes. The surprising diversity of the landscape is matched by the wide variety of wildlife.Horton-Plains-3621<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The plateau comes to a sudden end at World\u2019s End, a stunning escarpment that plunges 880m. Unless you get there early the view from World\u2019s End is often obscured by mist, particularly during the rainy season from April to September. The early morning is the best time to visit, before the clouds roll in. That\u2019s when you\u2019ll spy toy town tea plantation villages in the valley below, and an unencumbered view south towards the coast. In the evening and early morning you\u2019ll need long trousers and a sweater, but the plains warm up quickly, so take a hat for sun protection. The weather is clearest January to March.
World\u2019s End<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the only national park in Sri Lanka where visitors are permitted to walk on their own (on designated trails only). The walk to World\u2019s End is 4km, but the trail loops back to Baker\u2019s Falls (2km) and continues back to the entrance (another 3.5km). The round trip is 9.5km and takes a leisurely three hours. Note that around 9am to 10am the mist usually comes down. All you can expect to see from World\u2019s End after this time is a swirling white wall. If you aim for a 5.30am to 6am departure from Nuwara Eliya or Haputale and get to World\u2019s End around 7am, you\u2019ll have a good chance of spectacular views.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Horton Plains national park is a beautiful, silent, strange world with some excellent hikes in the shadows of Sri Lanka\u2019s second and third highest mountains, Kirigalpotta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scenic-places"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theresidencehikkaduwa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}