Nuwara Eliya & Horton Plains

At 1,990 metres, above sea level, Nuwara Eliya is Sri Lanka’s highest town. It was once a popular British hill station, situated in the heart of ‘tea country’, and is now a quaint and charming resort town. This former British hill station can be surprisingly cool at this altitude and often quite wet – somewhat reminiscent of home!

Traces of the colonial era are evident everywhere: the imposing architecture of the grand hotels, the golf course, the race course, the street names, the trout streams, the bungalows with well-kept lawns and flower gardens, and the nostalgic Hill Club. The reason for its prosperity was primarily the rail connection to Colombo that allows the intensively cultivated and highly productive market gardens to transport vegetables and flowers directly to the capital.

We recommend a visit to a tea plantation, see the tea fields and tea factory – complete with some antiquated machinery – where the leaves are processed after picking. The whole story of tea from bush to cuppa is fascinating – and it’s thirsty work! Along with rubber and coconuts, tea is still a major contributor to the Sri Lankan economy.

Nearby Horton Plains is Sri Lanka’s highest plateau. A cool and bracing climate plays host to distinctive flora, colourful butterflies, wild orchids and many rare highland birds including almost all of the country’s endemics.