Udawalawa National Park

The elephant park. Not one animal --- a hundred.

Udawalawa is different from Yala and Wilpattu in one decisive respect: the elephant. The park was created specifically to protect the elephant population displaced when the Udawalawa reservoir was built in 1968. Today it holds over 500 elephants --- and unlike the forested parks where elephants are encountered by chance, Udawalawa's open grassland means they are visible constantly.

Experiences at this stop

• Elephant safari --- morning and evening

The open grassland means elephant sightings are not the exception --- they are the structure of the day. Herds at the waterholes, mothers with newborns, old bulls at the treeline.

• Elephant Transit Home

A rehabilitation centre that rescues orphaned elephant calves, raises them, and releases them back into Udawalawa as adults. The feeding sessions are genuinely care-focused rather than performance-focused.

• Open grassland bird watching

Crested serpent eagle, Brahminy kite, white-bellied sea eagle, and the endemic Sri Lanka junglefowl at the forest edge.