While we were in Sigiriya, we decided to go and visit the Minneriya National Park, a short drive (maybe 20 minutes) from the village.
We were approached by a man who offered to take us on a safari tour in his jeep at LKR 5,000 - but time constraints meant we ended up booking through our hotel, at a price of LKR 7,500.
It's good to know that the price is per jeep, not per person, so if there are lots of you it will work out substantially cheaper on a per-head basis.
Mid to late afternoon is the best time to see the elephants for which Minneriya is famous. We set off from the hotel about 1.30pm.
We arrived at the national park to encounter a large queue of vehicles to get in...
...and a large queue of people waiting for tickets....
We bought our tickets, noting the discriminatory pricing (LKR 1,995 per foreign adult, and LKR 60 for a local).
... and our jeep set off deep into the wilds of the park.
We were a bit worried that the large queue of vehicles would mean that we had a traffic jam right through the park, but it wasn't to be. Our driver was happy to lose the crowd, taking less popular side roads.
We met this crocodile (from a distance):
Eventually, we broke out of the jungle into grassland, where we could see the famous Minneriya Tank. The lake is actually a man-made reservoir, apparently built in the third century.
Here, in the dry season, elephants gather from all over northern Sri Lanka to feed and water.
We were blown away by the number of elephants we saw. Talk of an elephant gathering was absolutely right.
We saw elephants both big and small.
The baby elephants were especially cute and lovely.
The gathering was simply majestic. The elephants were peaceful, grazing happily as they went about their business.
We couldn't count the all the elephants we saw. We got as far as 150, but there were lots more than that. Maybe closer to 200. It was an unmissable, unforgettable sight.
After seeing the elephants, our driver stopped by the shore of the lake.
From here, we could see buffalo...
...and water birds.
We were interested to see too that, despite the lake being both man-made and freshwater, there appeared to be shellfish washed up along the edge. We weren't sure what these were, and our guide didn't know.
We had a fantastic time at Minneriya, and we'd thoroughly recommend it for anyone visiting north-central Sri Lanka at the right time of year to see the elephants gather (we were there in July, perhaps a tad early to experience it fully).
It was an expensive day out, but thoroughly enjoyable and simply amazing to see. We give it a 10/10.
