Janet's Journal

The magic words “I guarantee you will see a leopard” were enough to persuade me to book a safari to this park, even though I know that there can be no such guarantees where wild life is concerned.

Kumana National Park is in the south eastern corner of the island, north of Yala, covering an area of almost 45,000 acres. It is a one hour drive from Arugam Bay.

As I chose to do the four hour safari I opted for the slightly more expensive Toyota Hilux vehicle for the extra comfort.  Even before getting to the park we had negotiated goats, cattle, water buffalo, langurs and spotted our first elephant by the roadside.  A golden jackal stopped to watch us pass.

Once through the gates the beauty of this landscape starts to unfold, ranging from tropical dry zone scrubland to large swamps, lagoons and mangrove forests.  

One of the most important areas for birds more than half of the total number of species in Sri Lanka have been recorded here.  

The wetlands support a huge variety of birds, too numerous to name here but including white bellied sea eagles, grey headed fishing eagles, kingfishers of various sizes and colours, waders, storks, hornbills and brown fish owls. 

Spotted deer stared at us ready to flee at the first sign of danger.  A ruddy mongoose scampered through the grass beside us.  

Wild pigs raced across the road and back again in front of the vehicle.  Peafowl were everywhere. No Leopards!

We had some lovely sightings of elephants, wild water buffalo, and many huge mugger crocodiles.  

After two hours our driver told us where he’d seen leopard the previous day but no sign of any the 17 resident leopards in the park today.

A little black naped hare solemnly watched us before darting back under cover, then a Sri Lankan jungle fowl, the national bird, strutted nonchalantly across our path.

Suddenly the driver stopped the vehicle, peering into the scrub he whispered “a leopard is walking in there”.  Tantalising glimpses of spotted fur moving through the bushes then the leopard calmly appeared and walked down the road in front of us for a little way before disappearing back into the forest.

Not long after that we stopped abruptly for another leopard calmly sitting by the side of the road facing us.  After happily watching this beautiful cat for a little while it decided to stroll back into the shade of the trees, and then was gone

Our time in the park was almost up, all vehicles must be checked out by 6pm.  Driving a bit quicker we almost missed a third leopard walking alongside us heavily camouflaged in the scrub.