Tea factory, Rafting. Beach

We started the morning by breathing in some fresh hill air - Nuwara Eliya is 6500 ft above sea level so whilst it wasn't cold it was definately more chilly than we had been used to . The view from our hotel window was over the tea plantations and surrounding hills and was quite beautiful. Our hotel was a refurbished 'Columbo Dockyards Resting House' - somewhere for the workers to come and relax !! 

We had got a long journey ahead of us as we needed to travel to the beach which on google maps said it was only 170km away and should take 2.5hours. They obviously weren't taking in the very windy roads coming down from the hills and Sri Lankan driving.  

We packed ourselves into our car for the last day and our first stop was the Mackwoods tea plantation. Established in 1841 they are another tea house who have acres upon acres of tea fields which are plucked, prepared and dried and then shipped off to the tea auction houses of Columbo and sold to the likes of Tetley, PG Tips etc etc to be blended into tea bags. We were served with tea on the terrace (free of charge) to sample their blend of Orange Pekoe - a light tea which you drink without milk . Definitely a much nicer taste than your average builders tea - but maybe that could have been the setting. We have bought some to bring back home so will certainly tell when we brew it on home turf.  

Winding down the hills we also stopped off at the Rothschild tea plantation to walk through the fields - beautiful, and Ramboda Falls - a waterfall which is surrounded again by beautiful scenery,  

Our driver had said if we wanted too we could do some white water rafting on our way to the beach - to be honest I thought he had forgotten as we drove slowly down from the hills for about 2 hours until he pointed out the place we could do this. Emma was very keen I twisted Paul's arm to join her. We were now in the jungle and the temperature had definately warmed up. Paul and Emma kitted themselves out and then walked down some very precarious steps to get to the river. The boat followed by them down by zip wire - I looked on quite scared but I think Paul was a bit more apprehensive than he was making out. They went off on their first little rapid and I was driven to the Plantation Hotel 3.5km to meet them. The river comes from Adams Peak down to the sea in Colombo. They were certainly rapids but not especially white water. However, it was a fun and easy introduction to rafting for Emma. Both Paul and Emma jumped into the water for the last rapid at the suggestion of the guide; after that it was impossible to get Emma back out of the water.

Lunch over we then made our way to the beach - 3 hours later on some very scary roads we reached our hotel. The Blue Water .... as we entered reception tired and hot we were greeted with cold towels and fresh juice - Heaven!