First Descents and Last Descents, Sri Lanka

Things are going well in Sri Lanka! More first descents, waterfalls and slides!

We left our base at  Borderlands ready for our next exploration after going to the Perihara ‘Festival of Lights’.

This takes place in Kandy, where a huge procession of musicians, dancers, fire spinners and of course, 85 elephants in fairy lights! The major reason for the festival is to parade Buddha’s tooth. It is said that this tooth was pulled out and made Buddha cry, so signifies the start of the monsoon season in the North of the country.

The suggestion of more rain is just what we needed to top up the rivers in Sri Lanka,  so we were in high spirits. Unfortunately, after scouting a few dry river beds, we were beginning to worry that Buddha wasn’t crying hard enough. This all changed the evening after we scouted the Goorook Oya river. It looked good to go from the road, and as we camped near the put in, the dark clouds gathered. It was only then that we realised the tent we’d borrowed from Borderlands was one that was marked for repair. Error.

We emerged in the morning soaked to the skin, but buzzing with anticipation. We wern’t dissapointed! Boofs, flares, grinds and cheers made this a birthday for Tom to remember and a river not to be missed if you ever find yourself in the wonderful country.

This world class (probably) first descent was made even more special because for the first time in any of our paddling careers, it was a first descent with a team member from the host country. Thilack, born in the village of Kitugala near the Kelani river paddled his 3rd ever river with us. And nailed it!

Dam projects are becoming an increasing problem for us searching for new rivers to paddle. More than once we have arrived at one which looks from the maps to have a good catchment, good gradient, and good road access, but a mini hydro project has thwarted our plans.

One river we planned to paddle was the Kotmale Oya. Parts of it have previously been paddled by a group of Russians. This was before the massive dam project which is currently very near to completion. Fortunately we managed to get there before they completely stopped the flow. Who knows, this could be a last descent!

Despite the long bush whack, getting on just below the impressive St Claires Falls was pretty cool, and the full 15km of class 4/5 made the section all the sweeter! This river just kept on giving!

Check out our website for more details: www.kayaksrilanka.co.uk