Tea Country Trail | 07 | High Forrest To Kandapola

Today's walk can start at the entrance of the High Forrest Tea Factory or a few hundred meters below on the grounds near High Forrest Village. Heading in the direction to Apple Farm and Nuwara Eliya, the first few kilometers of the way are on a track that ascends very gently and gradually, on estate roads. Quoting Juliet Coombe, “a land of swirling vivid green velvet-like high elevation tea plantations in corduroy patterns”.

You will pass by a very pretty half-moon shaped village, up and over a small hill before you reach Apple Farm. At the 1.6 Km point, we enter the “Apple Farm”. Apple Farm is a small valley full of vegetable gardens surrounded by pine and eucalyptus forests. Follow the train on your GPS carefully. There is a key turn down a dirt track at the 2.4 Km point. The track takes you into a completely different world - once you cross a stream over the small improvised bridge there is a 400 meter stretch of high elevation rain forest which is so different to the terrain you have been walking on that it makes you wonder where you are.

At the 4.1 Km point as you exit the rain forest, the trail zig-zags up the tea field and over into the actual 'high forest'. The route inside the high forest is easy to follow. There is a track the size of a small road. Check your GPRS if needed or if foggy. The road keeps ascending gradually uphill for a few KM.

At the 5 Km point, views of the Apple Farm valley open up to your right. The forest is one your left and a valley of vegetable gardens on your right. At the 6.1 KM point, you enter the forest again and after a few hundred meters you are back on a tea plantation heading southeast.

After a few Km of tea trails, there is an unavoidable 800 meter stretch of the main road, at the 7.7 Km point exactly. We are back in the tea bushes zig-zagging our way up the mountain. This is the most challenging physical part of the walk. We peak in altitude at the 12.1 KM point at which point we begging a gradual descent through tea plantations all the way to Kandapola town.

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