This had dogged me ever since, and in the depth of winter after returning from the highs of seeing tiger in India we decided that we should return, but this time making our own arrangements. We originally tried for the February half term holiday, but the direct flights on Sri Lankan Airlines were not available, so we opted once again to visit over the Easter holiday, as we had done before. This time though Easter was a little earlier, with us departing six days earlier than in 2014. Last time we missed out on Blue Whale by one day, I was hoping that the six days would play to our advantage.
So on Thursday the 29th March we entered the late afternoon traffic heading away for the Easter holidays, and arrived at Heathrow terminal 3 in plenty of time. We were flying direct to Colombo on Sri Lankan Airlines, arriving at 12.45 local time the next day..
Our arrangements were made through Travelbag, with them using a local agency Diethelm in Sri Lanka. We were to be picked up by a driver at the airport, and taken the the Weligama Bay Marriott Resort, where we would stay for three nights. Here we would undertake two whale watches on the 31st March, and the 1st April, then on the 2nd we would drive to Yala National Park, staying in the Cinnamon Wild Hotel, which we had used before in 2014. An ideal location minutes from the park entrance. We would be here for another three nights before returning to To Weligama Bay for another two nights and a final whale watch. Our return flight to Heathrow was a day flight on the 7th April. It was a very packed schedule but one we were both looking forward to.
The flight was on time, and getting through immigration was very painless, as I had applied for electronic visas in the same was our trip to India I was fearing a similar experience of long queues but they did not exist, and we moved through immigration with a smile. Our bags turned up quickly too, and everything was falling into place very well.
Last time when we arrived we had to wait for well over an hour for a couple to turn up, this time as we were on our own we were hoping to set off quickly. But as we walked the line of name boards searching for ours, the hope evaporated, there was no one there.
Fortunately a local representative was present, and after a while he began to sort things out. Eventually after about an hour, a driver was found for us to take us to Weligama Bay. This is around a two and a half hour journey, but it took over three hours, and when we returned to the airport at the end of the holiday, I realised that the driver got completely lost!
When we finally did arrive at the hotel we realised that when we had been here before it was in construction, and that at the time we had commented on what an eye sore it would be on the bay, and to be fair it was. However it was a wonderful resort, and as we walked in we realised we had struck lucky
We had also been told that there would be instructions regarding the rest of our itinerary when we arrived at the hotel, but there was nothing, so it required more phone calls to finally get a start time for our first whale watch in the morning.
The sun was now just going down, as we walked into our room, and from our balcony we had wonderful views around the bay.
Palm trees lined the edge of the beach all the way around the way, while surfers could be seen waiting for the perfect wave in the ocean.
As the sun sank the bay was lit with a golden light, it was a lovely scene to soak away the stress of the journey and the problems we had encountered in getting to the hotel
House and Large Billed Crows were everywhere, and their calls drowned out the squeaks of the Rose-ringed Parakeets that were using the Coconut palms to roost in. As the sun finally set the sky turned a vivid orange, silhouetting the crows on the fronds of the palms.
As I said in my last blog post, I hope that the trip turns up something huge, tomorrow we would find out!
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