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We had a quiet start to the day as we had not organised our trip to Yala until the afternoon. We had the normal leisurely breakfast (service is so slow it's the only kind you get in Sri Lanka). We then had a walk into town via the tank (local reservoir) - not much to see as Tissa is a small sleepy place. We adjourned back to the hotel as it had a pool - such luxury.
We were taken to Yala in the back of an open Land Rover with the same driver Judi & Ken had yesterday - a very knowledgeable young man. The park itself is quite large and only a quarter of it open to visitors. There were about another 20 or so 4x4s going round it at the same time - even with the park so big they all seemed to end up at the same spots. The drivers passed each other shaking their heads to say - 'no leopards'. We did see lots of other animals - crocodiles, wild boar, deer, hare, elephants, terrapin laying eggs and again lots of birds. After a couple of hours, it looked like no leopard then we turned a corner and there he was crossing the road. He was most obliging - stopped for a second so I could take a photo then moved off. He was a young male looking for his dinner - the peacock knew this and sought safety at the top of the tree. This was the first time we had seen a big cat in the wild - certainly a quite close quarters - it was certainly the highlight of the week. After this we were also saw a second leopard - although this was a long way away - he was sitting basking in the sun on top of a rock.
After this it was a bit of an anti-climax - but still had the pleasure of a wonderful sunset as we drove home before adjourning to the hotel next door for supper.
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