World's End, Horton Plains
Interesting facts
- The plateau's old Sinhala name, Maha Eliya Thenna, means 'great open plain'; the British renamed it after Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton, governor of Ceylon from 1831 to 1837.
- Stone tools of the prehistoric Balangoda culture have been found on the plains above the escarpment.
- The plains are the headwaters of three of Sri Lanka's major rivers, the Mahaweli, the Kelani and the Walawe.
- Kirigalpoththa and Thotupola Kanda, the island's second and third highest peaks, rise at the western and northern edges of the plateau.
- The cliff and plateau are built of ancient Precambrian rocks, mainly khondalites, charnockites and granitic gneisses.
- Although the yearly mean is about 13°C, days can reach 27°C and nights fall to 5°C, and ground frost is common in February.
- On the botanist Joseph Hooker's advice, an 1873 order protected all montane forests above 5,000 feet in Ceylon from felling.
- Between 1831 and 1948 the plains were a hunting ground for sambar, and elephants had vanished from the area by the 1940s at the latest.
- A six-metre pollen core from a local mire shows that in the late Quaternary the area had a semi-arid climate with far fewer plant species.
- The rusty-spotted cat was recorded in the park for the first time in 2016, at elevations above 2,000 metres.
Why it is worth it
World's End is the place where the high grassland of Horton Plains simply stops. The plateau, lying at roughly 2,000 metres in Sri Lanka's central highlands, ends at its southern edge in a sheer escarpment that falls about 870 metres to the tea country and lowlands below. On a clear morning the view runs across ridges and valleys towards the south coast; later in the day it often disappears altogether, as cloud rises up the wall and leaves walkers staring into white. That rapid change is part of the experience — the mist usually wins by late morning, so the walk is traditionally started soon after dawn.
The cliff is reached on foot by a circular trail of about 9.5 kilometres that begins near the old Farr Inn visitor centre. The route crosses open grassland and patches of cloud forest before reaching Mini World's End, a smaller drop of around 270 metres that serves as a preview, and then the main edge. The loop returns by Baker's Falls, a 20-metre cascade on the Belihul Oya, named after the explorer Samuel Baker. The whole circuit takes about three hours at an easy pace.
The landscape around the viewpoint is as much of a reason to come as the drop itself. Horton Plains is one of the coolest and wettest places on the island, with a mean temperature of about 13°C, and its stunted cloud forest is dominated by rhododendron trees whose red flowers stand out against the grass. Sambar deer graze in the open, and the plateau is known for highland birds found nowhere else in Sri Lanka. The area became a wildlife sanctuary in 1969, a national park in 1988, and in 2010 part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka.
Getting there
World's End lies within Horton Plains National Park, about 21 km in a straight line from Nuwara Eliya. The nearest international airport by distance is Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (HRI), about 66 km away, though most visitors arrive via Colombo and travel up into the hills. Roads reach the park's visitor centre from the north via Pattipola and from the south via Ohiya; both villages have stations on the upcountry railway, about 10–11 km from the trailhead, with onward transport arranged locally. The walk starts at the visitor centre, so an early arrival gives the best chance of a clear view.
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From the encyclopaedia
World's End is located within the Horton Plains National Park in Nuwara Eliya District, Sri Lanka. It is a sheer cliff, with a drop of about 1,200 metres (4,000 ft). It is one of the most visited parts of the Park, and a key tourist attraction in the Nuwara Eliya District and the country at large.
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