We woke to a beautiful clear morning on Lake Castlereigh this morning after all the rain yesterday - so it was an extra sad sight to see the boat approaching to take us away from our beautiful bungalow at the Ceylon Tea Trails - but hopefully not forever!
We had a six hour drive ahead of us, taking forever through the narrow, windy, slow moving roads and spectacular landscapes of the central highlands until we get to the faster moving main highway heading south to Galle on Sri Lanka's SW coast.
We eventually arrived at our hotel in Galle Fort a bit after 3.30pm. The fortified old city of Galle where we are staying was established by the Portuguese in the 16th century, expanded during Dutch rule and then consolidated by the British. The architecture of Galle Fort reflects all of its European past.
Its about a 2 and a 1/2 klm walk around the ramparts of the old city's fort walls so we set out to go as far as we could before sunset. We started at Aurora Bastion looking out to Lighthouse Beach.
By now we were feeling extremely hot and sweaty - the late afternoon sun was baking hot.
So we did the only sensible thing and stopped for a Lion beer at the Rampart Hotel to wait it out until the magical sunset hour .......
We are staying at the historic old Fort Printers Hotel in the centre of the old town. We are staying in our own wing of this boutique hotel with a small kitchen and living/dining area for our own use. Galle Fort is another UNESCO World Heritage Site so there are very significant restrictions on the ways buildings can be altered or renovated. Our hotel is full of quirks and character!
It hasn't taken us long to realise that Galle Fort is an extremely popular tourist hotspot now.. The streets are filled with British and Asian tourists and every second shop sells jewellery or wooden elephants. We're glad we only have a full day here .......
However, along with the tourists Galle Fort does have some excellent gelati vendors, friendly cafes and great opportunities to drink beer at sunset, so all is not lost!!
The Dilmah Tea Company owns the Dunkeld Estate, the 220 hectare plantation and tea factory just a short distance up the hill from Castlereigh Bungalow. The tea factory has a visitor centre which welcomes guests from all the Ceylon Tea Trails residences.
A close up of the Camellia Sinensis plant which came to Sri Lanka in the 1800s, and which now covers most of the central highlands area. The tea industry (now Sr Lanka's biggest export earner) was started by the British James Taylor in 1867.
We were taken on a very interesting tour by Bernard, who knows the tea business inside out! These bushes are all hand plucked (leaves are plucked every week or so). With good management plants can keep producing over a hundred years.
He took us through all the factory processes - from withering the leaves, to the first cut .......
to the second and third rolling ...to the fermentation stage.......... We were surprised by how low tech and organic the process remains. The tea makers make judgments about every stage of the process based on years of experience and finely calibrated skills - not based on machines or computers - a lot like wine making really .........
and finally, single estate, made at source, Dunkeld Broken Orange Pekoe Fanning (BOPF) tea ....ready for auction.
The smell of fragrant (and fermenting) tea permeates the factory....
The tea pluckers are all tiny hardworking women (mostly Tamils). Their base pay is $6 a day as long as they pick 18 kg of leaves. Those bags they're carrying by a band around their heads are up to 15kgs by the time they're full. Apparently these women can earn decent money for any bags they pick over the 18kg baseline. Like a lot of other estates now Dunkeld supports a health centre and a school for the families of the pickers.
Just like yesterday it bucketed down rain all afternoon leaving us plenty of time to enjoy our beautiful accommodation - early evening G & Ts, reading, socialising and then another beautiful evening meal. We enjoyed our conversation with other guests from the UK who own a sailing boat that they keep moored in Cannes in the Mediterranean. The boat has special significance because it was made in 1937 and used to be owned by JFK!!
Everything about our stay here has been superb!
It was another early start yesterday morning as we said goodbye to Clove Villa in Kandy - such a lovely place to stay!
We joined the crowd of tourists and backpackers waiting at Kandy Railway Station - for the train to Badulla. Most of the backpackers were heading to Adam's Peak. We were heading to Hatton, to meet up with our driver again for the drive to Ceylon Tea Trails, a collection of 5 luxury bungalows that were originally the residences of British tea planters in the colonial era - now run by Relais & Chateaux as luxury boutique hotels (a very special treat for us!).
This is a very popular train journey in Sri Lanka - through spectacular highland scenery and tea plantings as far as the eye can see .......
It was a very pleasant two and a half hour journey for us sitting in our First Class Reserved seats.
Hatton is a small but buzzy city....... but with not much else to recommend it ...
We were without our guide this morning (sick with flu). Our driver Samon is a beautiful man and a fantastic driver - but his English is much more limited so we ended up somewhat confused when after an hour of driving through the beautiful mist shrouded hills of Sri Lanka's high country we ended up at Summerville Bungalow, instead of our intended Castlereigh Bungalow, on the opposite side of the lake! Turns out we were reaching our final destination by boat (apparently the road to Castlereigh was "not well" today!).
Our Castlereigh Bungalow overlooks the lake and is set in beautifully landscaped gardens. At an altitude of 1250 metres there obviously was no problem establishing a charming, English style cottage garden .......
The bungalow includes 5 spacious bedroom suites. We are shown to our garden view room by the butler ....
..with our own private garden overlooking the lake ....
We have our own chef too and a beautiful 3 course lunch is served for us on the veranda - and a choice of wines. That is followed by high tea around 4.00pm, and canapés and pre dinner drinks, then a beautiful 4 course dinner at about 7.30pm ...... We take over this table and don't move very far for this marathon of ultimate gastronomy.
The property's garden merges with the perfectly manicured tea plantings covering the surrounding hills.
Rain settled in, quite heavy at times, with rolling thunder and lightning. There was little else we could do but sit back and enjoy all the food, the beautiful wines and the constant but unobtrusive service of the highly trained staff at this beautiful property. We all drank and ate far too much over the 9 hours or so - but what else were we to do??
We had a six hour drive ahead of us, taking forever through the narrow, windy, slow moving roads and spectacular landscapes of the central highlands until we get to the faster moving main highway heading south to Galle on Sri Lanka's SW coast.
Its about a 2 and a 1/2 klm walk around the ramparts of the old city's fort walls so we set out to go as far as we could before sunset. We started at Aurora Bastion looking out to Lighthouse Beach.
By now we were feeling extremely hot and sweaty - the late afternoon sun was baking hot.
So we did the only sensible thing and stopped for a Lion beer at the Rampart Hotel to wait it out until the magical sunset hour .......
We are staying at the historic old Fort Printers Hotel in the centre of the old town. We are staying in our own wing of this boutique hotel with a small kitchen and living/dining area for our own use. Galle Fort is another UNESCO World Heritage Site so there are very significant restrictions on the ways buildings can be altered or renovated. Our hotel is full of quirks and character!
It hasn't taken us long to realise that Galle Fort is an extremely popular tourist hotspot now.. The streets are filled with British and Asian tourists and every second shop sells jewellery or wooden elephants. We're glad we only have a full day here .......
However, along with the tourists Galle Fort does have some excellent gelati vendors, friendly cafes and great opportunities to drink beer at sunset, so all is not lost!!
