Xmas in Little England UpCountry

Four of us set off for a Christmas break in the town called “Little England”, Nuwara Eliya, the coolest town in central Sri Lanka. As a group our code name is “The Travel Bucket List” as we have a passion for travel locations and events.  

The drive takes just over five hours from Colombo to Nuwara Eliya, with many signs of landslides and debris, but most no longer impacting the roadways. An amazing job has been done by the government teams and volunteers. There has been at least one trip a year over twenty‑two years of my living on this island. Never before have we done Xmas here, as the masses traditionally descend and it is hectic. This Christmas and New Year, however, for many known reasons, it is generally quieter. The roads here a few weeks  ago were not passable.

Given it is Christmas, where else would we stay than the celebratory Hill Club, founded back in 1866 .Old charm, great location and homely. There has been lots of upgrading and some better use of spaces. They have left the secret “ladies only” door to the club that became redundant when ladies could enter officially.  

On our arrival at the club, we have a festive welcome and a tour. We walk down to the Grand Hotel, a property built in 1828 by Sir Edward Barnes, a visionary of infrastructure in the area. The hotel looks great and likely the best I have seen this  festive season. We dine over the next few days in there -  Thai, Indian and main restaurants. Returning on our walk to the Hill Club, we meet the free roaming horses and the skinny dogs also taking a stroll, but not together.

I am looking forward to some new places to visit in the area, so we go to Ambewela Milk Farm, “Little New Zealand”. Amazing to see orderly cows and their daily routine. Very self‑disciplined cows with a routine including a washing and massage machine, the milking process, and they all look so healthy. I wonder what happens to older cows who have poor milk yield. We hear they also breed other animals, rabbits and goats . Amongst many foreign tourists we meet some Egyptians , UAE travellers and many Indian visitors.

The drive there and back is stunning, with green rolling hillsides and mountains in the background. Ten minutes from the centre of town, we arrive at a temple above the city. Swarnagiri Maha Viharaya has rows of Buddhist statues, with one big one in the process of being built. We see nobody in the place. We go down the road round at the back of Lake Gregory to see all the panoramic views and all the big properties with massive gardens and big drives belonging to the rich and famous as holiday homes. In their heyday, they would have been built and owned by the British. Some are now used as rentable villas.

Service at the Hill Club is rather slow but the bar staff make great cocktails. We go to my favourite church in the town, Trinity Church, an over 150‑year‑old building with new outer walls added in 1960 to protect the fragile old inner church. With over two hundred graves there is a story for everyone. My crazy atheist friend asks if he can book a plot of land for his grave. It is this church yard where I showed the local  vicar three British war graves he was unaware of. Queen Elizabeth has visited the church twice and two large stained‑glass windows mark the occasions.

The caretaker can give you a tour but there are signs up saying “no photography”. I have rarely seen this before in any church. In another location I find the cursed grave of Captain Thomas Rogers. He has the dubious record of shooting 1,400 to 2,000 elephants in Sri Lanka. The grave has been hit by lightning many times.

A more serious bit of history. In 1818 Doctor John Davy found a place with English weather and set about starting what would become Nuwara Eliya. In 1883 Samuel Baker, an explorer, was also said to be an early developer of the town. William Horton (Horton Plains) wrote much about the place. Sir William Gregory had the lake built and Sir Robert London created the railway in 1877.

Close by we go to Pedro Estate, Moon Plains, a development of about forty‑five large Tudor‑style English houses in a gated community , with a poor security set‑up. Amazing. I feel as though I am back in the UK, even the temperature is cool. We return to the Hill Club for carols and afternoon tea.