Situated close to the Hatton - Thalawakele road this is a most beautiful sight.
Experiences of my batch-mate Buddy Reid at this site.
Hello Phillip,
I am no photographer, but I too started with a box camera belonging to someone
else on a trip to Nuwara Eliya in 1955. I nearly lost my life as a result. I
wanted to take a picture of the water falling downwards from the top of Devon
Falls. I went close to the edge and slipped on the wet rock. I was
sliding downwards almost at the edge when I saw a clump of grass about one
foot in diameter. I managed to grab it with my left hand and fortunately
for me it did not break off at the roots.
The box camera flew out of my right hand, across my body to the left and
landed near a pool in the rock. I carefully went on all fours and
retrieved it as it was worth more than my life, by which I really mean
that my life would not have been worth living if I had lost my friend's
expensive camera.
Buddy
Hello Phillip,
Thanks for the photograph of Devon Falls which adds drama to the story. You can
see the road at the back, curving to the right end of the picture. I got off
the car at the right end of your picture and walked down the pathway
that you see, running at about a 20 degree angle from the road to the top
of the falls. I slipped on the very limited area of rock between the end of the
path and the top of the falls (the left side of the falls which is the right
side of the photograph as you face the photograph). As you can see, it is a
sheer drop. We did silly things when we were young. I wonder whether any of our
batch-mates have done things which beat this for lunacy or had near death
experiences. Please don't let my grandchildren know about this. I
don't even let them climb up the side of their bunk bed.
Buddy
Click on the web-link below to watch a video-clip of this:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AzP47p0ROg
email observation from Nana
Hi Buddy
I am glad to hear that I am not the only lunatic in the batch.
When I came over to UK in 1976, I thought I knew how to drive
around in my car. My wife and I took few of our Sri Lanka friends to
witness a cricket match played between the Sri Lankan cricket team against
Somerset. We traveled from Sheffield (that was where I was working as an SHO
in Paediatrics at the time) to reach the cricket grounds.
We did not have 'sat nav' facilities then, but only the printed road maps. As we
were not very good at getting the road directions, I had entered a
motorway(which I should never have got into) in the wrong way round and only realized my folly when we found few cars coming in the opposite direction. It
was not funny and all the inmates were shouting at me in real filth. (May be
some one at the time was helping me as I was not destined to die that young)
I managed to take a U turn and get onto the right way round within a few
breathless moments. Fortunately that motorway was new and there
were not many cars at the time.
We did witness the match and we cheered the Sri Lanka team as they did well
against Somerset ( Ian Botham and Viv Richards were in the team).
We did return home safely very late.
Not surprisingly the 2 friends who were with us refused to get into
my car afterwards.( Incidentally both those friends have died few years ago).
I am still alive to tell the tale.
You may share this with your grand children to show that even the medical
students can be stupid, ignorant and foolhardy.
Best wishes.
Nana
