Having never set foot in a canoe or kayak before, I am setting off at the end of August to hike and paddle the longest river in Sri Lanka from source to sea. With a length of 208 miles (335 km) the Mahaweli Ganga or Great Sandy River is a similar length to the Londons River Thames. The journey will take me, and my inflatable kayak named Challenge, through many of Sri Lankas landscapes.
Beginning at the country'third highest peak -Totapola Kanda. I will travel through tea plantations to the ancient kingdom of Kandy before joining the boundary lines of little visited national parks that are home to leopards and elephant. Eventually I will reach the island's east coast and the Bay of Bengal just south of Trincomalee. Always interested in making each adventure as different from the one before as possible, I will be attempting his descent with a teammate, Kerim Morris, fellow adventurer and blogger, engineer (and former coffee shop manager).