We ended our 10 days in Unawatuna with a visit to a little beach; Dalawella is shallow, calm and clear. I won’t go on too much about the turtles we snorkelled with but I will just say it was truly spectacular and to share the experience with John and the kids too was amazing. We also went to Jungle Beach, which again was gorgeous but a bit too busy as it was so small and had too many smoking Russians. You know how I feel about smoking (if you don’t, where have you been?) and I’m pleased to announce the Sri Lankans in general don’t smoke, it’s the Europeans and Russians you’ll smell first.

I took the kids on their first jet ski ride. Like me, they loved it but of course I went too fast for Arlo and cornered too sharply and we all fell off, no panicking from either kid, we just climbed back on and zoomed off.

Went whale watching in Marissa, they saw a Blue Whale, a Shark Whale, and two Great Sea Turtles shagging…I saw bugger all as I was busy spewing over the side of the boat, the sea sickness tablets didn’t work for me.

John has had 24hrs of the shits, he’s fine now and feels great with an empty tum.

Our host Darshaka arranged a taxi for us to take us to Ella via Udawalawa National Park for a safari trip. We were all looking forward to it (not so the 4am early rise) but we didn’t imagine it would be as wonderful as it was. Being 1m from an elephant and watching it rip up the grass, shake off the sand and eat it – was spectacular. We also saw crocodiles (Arlo’s favourite) mongoose, peacocks, eagles, water buffalo, jackals, numerous birds and iguanas.

We finally arrived in Ella, via Ravana Falls, a small town in the mountains. It’s much cleaner, cooler and hillier than the coast. It’s like Chinley on acid. A perfect temperature of around 25* and not so humid…I’m a happy camper. There’s no litter, the buses and tuktuks are a (little bit) more considerate. It’s a backpackers haven, young dreadlocked travellers flock here for the hiking, the bars and the scenery. It is truly beautiful. Our apartment is a small hotel. Rock Side Inn is a fantastic place on the side of a hill top with breathtaking views of Ella Rock and Little Adams Peak. We don’t need air con here! The kids are buzzin’ because they’ve got bunk beds.

We all hiked both Ella’s Rock and Little Adams Peak, both treks included walking down the train lines, a little bit scary for Henna whose a real conformist and doesn’t like to ‘step over the line’. Little Adams Peak was a 7mile schlep through tea plantations, luxury spas and 9 Arch Bridge with an elevation of 1220ft. Both kids took it all in their stride and didn’t once complain. We marched topless (not me unfortunately, the SL’s are very modest and any such skin activity is prohibited) in the cooling rain, whilst onlookers scurried into sheltered trees and huts.

The kids are doing better with the SL food, egg roti is the meal of choice and dahl and rice too.

Our trip just gets better and better and it’s the little happenings at just the right moment that make it extra special.

Now – Henna had shocking sunburn across her nose and cheeks, in the shape of a bat and I have a rash/ spots (lots of them) across my chin spreading up and onto my moustache and cheeks.  I always get some sort of stingy dry skin on my chin no matter which foreign country I go to, but this is the worst it’s been, loads of little white heads that are lumpy and sore. I think it’s blocked pores with all the sun cream and insect repellent we’re using. The sea water in Una just irritated it more.

Henna was not too bothered by her sunburn, we’ve tried our best to keep on top of it, but she just loves being in the water and no matter how much sun cream she has on, it comes off in the water. We’ve been recommended a skin mask type of thing that’s factor 70 but we have to wait until we get to Singapore, as we can’t get it here.

We’ve made some friends in SL, in the last 6 days we’ve been invited out to tea 3 times and we had people over at our place – we cooked them chips!

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