A Photo Trip to Anawilundawa and Chilaw sandspit

Recently, I had the pleasure of making a photo trip with my friends, Aruna and Tony. We had a fantastic trip and shared lot of thoughts throughout.

We made the decision to catch the first light from Mudal Lagoon and took Udappuwa road to reach there. The road was no good to drive fast and we saw the sun rise on our way to the lagoon. At that time, there was a small shower too. However, we captured that first light on that cloudy morning. Since there was no foreground interests, we found that the road made some interests with the sky reflections on the rain water drops on the road. And also, it made a shape like a “Z”.

Then, we headed to the lagoon and Aruna and Tony were busy with running after little birds at the bridge near Mundal lagoon. I was searching interesting subjects on the area and found followings.

Our next step was to visit Anavilundawa sanctuary which consists of an ancient group of  shallow cascading tanks, ranging from 12-50 ha in extent, built around 1140 AD by King Parakamabahu. The system consists of seven small irrigation tanks and almost dry when we visit this time in September. Bio diversity of the area was extremely amazing.

Guess what Aruna and Tony are trying to shoot here .

Actually they were hunting this little creature.

we spotted this little butterfly and Istruggled to shot with my 55-250mm lens, but the result was not satisfactory as it was small as 1.5 cm in height. Thanks to Tony who gave me his macro lens, I shot this guy. This butterfly is special for me, not only because of my first sighting of the species, but also this was the first time I could use a macro lens.

Anawilundawa was almost dry, we saw this guy was fishing in the remaining water in the tank

A dragonfly in action

After lunch, we went to visit sandpit near Chilaw fishing village

On our way home, we stopped by interesting places and took some photos

On our way near Katunayaka airport, we saw beautiful colors of the sunset and rushed to the place and captured some frames of an unforgettable sunset. I would say that my favorite shot of the trip is that sunset shot shown in the beginning of this post.

Galoya Senanayaka Samudraya

Senanayake Samudraya was built under the Gal Oya development project by damming the Gal Oya at Inginiyagala in 1950. (A Vaddha called Igini has come to the top of the rock on this isolated mountain and as a result of this the name Iginiyagala has been given.(Igini ආ Gala> Iginiyagala) This is said to be the first development project in the dry zone. Gal Oya National Park was established in 1954 and serves as the main catchment area for Senanayake Samudraya.
Crossing the Senanayake Samudraya by boat from Inginiyagala is an alternative method of accessing the National Park. Bird’s Island in the reservoir is an island used by birds for nesting. Where Gal Oya falls to the reservoir, water flows in a natural tunnel known as Makara Kata (Sinhalese for Dragon's mouth) or simply Makara.

The elevation of the park varies from 30 m to about 900 m. Danigala, Nilgala, and Ulpotha are the mountains of the park. Rain is received during the North-eastern monsoon with average annual rainfall of 1,700 millimetres (66.93 in).