Uda Walawe National Park

Uda Walawe National Park

With herds of elephants, wild buffalos, sambars and spotted deer, and giant squirrels, this Sri Lankan national park is one of the nation’s finest. In fact, for elephant watching, Uda Walawe often surpasses many of the most famous East African national parks. The park, which centres on the 308.2-sq-km Uda Walawe Reservoir, is lightly vegetated, but it has a stark beauty, and the lack of dense vegetation makes game watching easy.

Elephants are Uda Walawe’s key attraction, with around 600 in the park in herds of up to 50. There’s an elephant-proof fence around the perimeter of much of the park, (supposedly) preventing elephants from getting out into areas with a higher human population and cattle from getting in. Elephants can and do migrate into and out of the park along unfenced borders. The best time to observe herds is from 6.30am to 10am and again from 4pm to 6.30pm.

Alongside its famous elephant herds, the park is home to mongooses, jackals, water monitor lizards, lots of crocodiles, sloth bears and the occasional leopard. There are 30 varieties of snake and a wealth of birdlife – 210 species at last count; northern migrants join the residents between November and April.

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