After a late breakfast we started our trek to Ella rock. Luckily this involved buying a bottle of water and the vendor helpfully pointing out that we had in fact just passed the totally unsigned little road we needed to take to the railway track.
We walked along the railway track, wondering what a steel cable at the side was for. Rounding a bend we found it attached to an old semaphore signal, complete with failsafe counterweight. Elegant Victorian signalling still in use.
An increasingly loud series of horn blasts heralded the arrival of an express train. We stood at the trackside as it rumbled past. Sometimes the rails were attached to the sleepers, at other times not, but given the sedate speed of the trains, minor track imperfections are probably immaterial.
What was fascinating was that we weren't alone. A large section of the population was using the track as a pedestrian thoroughfare. Don't try this in the UK.
After we had crossed a bridge where the steel plates had been made long ago in Middlesborough, we came across a navvy gang of about 30 workers mostly equipped with adzes, brewing huge vats of mid-morning gruel over open fires by the trackside. One indicated we should follow a small footpath down from the track. This seemed to go through the living room of someone's shack which was unexpected, but did lead to a bridge over a waterfall which was as anticipated.
However we soon realised that we hadn't passed a station on the railway that we should have, and weren't on the path we had planned to take. Never mind, we thought, if we get really lost we will just head back towards the railway, otherwise just keep climbing. We were encouraged by meeting fellow hikers descending and eventually found ourselves in a tea plantation that existed on our maps. Our maps were cartographical fantasies mostly drawn from memory and posted on the internet. They bore little resemblance to each other and even less to the topography.
Up we climbed as the path became ever steeper as it wound through an eucalyptus plantation. For a very long time everyone we met said it was only ten minutes to the top and finally it really was.
The view from the summit was spectacular. Towards Ella the village could be seen scattered across the mountain at the top of the pass. Through the Ella gap, a deeply incised river valley, towards the ocean serried ranges of hills lost themselves in the mist where the coast must have been.
We explored a path from the summit which led to a serene Buddha statue sat in a cave and a view of a distant waterfall, then retraced our steps noticing that magically everyone else had disappeared. As we descended the reason became clear. The heavens opened and our footpath soon reverted to its previous existence as a watercourse.
By the time we had regained the tea plantation the rain had abated but we were convincingly soaked. I had unfortunately heeded Christine's advice not to carry the cagoules and now paid the price for my folly. The only dry parts of us were our feet, encased as they were in hiking boots.
This time we followed the main path, partly accompanied by a couple of local children hopeful of being given sweets, pens or money which disappointingly for them didn't occur. We found the railway easily and walked along it, but approaching Ella the rain resumed with if anything greater force.
After changing clothes we went into the village for a rather late lunch. We had thought that rotis would provide a light meal, but here they turned out to be very large and filling.
Later we tried to go back to the AK restaurant only to find it shuttered and closed. At a bar on the village high street we found out why. Today and tomorrow are classified as full moon days, Poya days in the Buddhist calendar, when no alcohol can be served. So fruit juice and coca-cola had to suffice to quench our thirst. A day of unexpected events.
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