August 2026
It is always exciting to return to Tekanda Lodge after a period away and see the changes. These are often natural and seasonal - the renewed vitality of the jungle after monsoon rain, when greens paled by an extended dry period darken into a dense and rich hue. But others are our own projects of incremental development that we generally schedule between May and July. This leads me to 'The Pond'.
My recollection is that shortly before leaving Sri Lanka at the beginning of June, I said to estate manager Ravindu 'while I am away, I'd like you to think about how we might create a little pond'. Ravindu says he heard 'create a pond while I am away'. And so the seeds of 'Pond Gate' were sown.
I was expecting to be presented on my return by a few sketches of a small natural pond in an isolated corner of the estate at the confluence of a brook and some significant water courses that run from the top of the hill down to paddy field level after heavy rain. Instead, I was escorted to the proposed site and greeted by what more closely resembled an Atacama Copper Mine. Mind boggling quantities of rich red earth piled high in every direction with a huge man-made crater in the middle. Peering over the edge, I could just about make out what appeared to be a puddle of muddy water at the very bottom. 'Pond' said Damayanthe, one of the more opinionated of the estate team, who clearly felt the wide-eyed, open mouthed me, needed some guidance.
I turned slowly to Ravindu, who, clearly aware this project had got a little out of hand, was avoiding eye contact by studiously poking a mound of soil with a stick as if it might just disappear in a moment of Harry Potter salvation. I gathered myself enough to leave the scene without comment - I have learned from experience that, to a Sri Lankan, nothing illuminates weakness of character more than an intemperate outburst.
When we have a 'rapidly developing situation' at Tekanda, the Defcon 4 stage is an urgent cobra meeting featuring Upul (Lodge Manager), Charlie and myself. In this meeting, it became clear that not only had we managed to create a vast eye-sore, but the estate team were on the verge of a walk-out because for the previous six weeks all they had done was dig. The solution proposed was the 1 day hire of a small excavator that would be tasked with landscaping the earth mountains into soft hillocks and shaping the crater to more natural contours. The estate team would be released from any further digging and instead start planting a mix of ferns, water lilies and tropical wetland flowers to beautify the bare earth.
This plan would have passed off perfectly had it not been for the fact there was no access to the world's newest open cast mine other than by foot. As a result, for the second time in 24 hours, I stared open-mouthed as excavator operator Sunil maneuvered his machine to an estimated point on the drive that he reckoned lined up with our target location (the 'pond') hidden by jungle and an almost vertical slope, some 60m below. Before I had time to compute what was about to happen, the machine with Sunil at its controls, shot over the edge and down the hill in a terrifying cacophony of revving engine, cracking wood and shrieking peacocks. When the cloud of debris had cleared, there, in the perfect location, was Sunil standing alongside the digger, beedi hanging out the corner of his mouth grinning broadly. Behind him a clean narrow swathe of the jungle had been eviscerated, reminiscent of the strips through Alpine forests when ski-lifts are installed. Suffice to say, this project hangs in the balance and I'll update in due course.
Fruit Orchard
Our fruit orchard is nearly two years old and whilst the Avocado, Mango, Rambutan, Soursop, Lemon, Lime, Mulberry and Guava trees are a few years away from production, our banana and passion fruit yields are bountiful! Here Pemawatti and Demayanthe are taking the latest produce up to the kitchen. We've had the occasional 'pig attack' as Ravindu refers to the wild boar upending young trees in their search for edible roots. But on the whole the skill and expertise of our estate team are keeping us ahead of the game and we can barely wait to a time when all trees are producing.
Getting stuck in
Last week we had a young Sydney couple that had left their children behind with grandparents for a landmark birthday treat and we were honoured to have been their central location for this special trip. It just so happened that after several unseasonably dry weeks, the south west monsoon decided to play catch-up for a few days and the weather, while still warm and tropical, was fairly wet.
But this couple were an absolute lesson in how to make it work. They had barely got off the plane before deciding an estate tour would shake off the flight nicely and what a thrill to do it in the soft patter of jungle rain. At 7am the next morning it was still raining but they were off by Tuk Tuk to meet surf guide Asanka at our year-round break in Weligama Bay. They spent two hours before breakfast riding clean three footers in 28c water without another surfer in sight. It was then back via Ahangama for an ocean-side coffee before late breakfast and backgammon on the Tekanda deck, all the while marvelling how at the slightest sense of rain, the birdlife goes into overdrive.
The afternoon was a boat trip on Koggala Lake, including the gorgeous island temple with its resident monks and the dusk fruit bat migration. The next day again began with another surf and a post breakfast trip to our local tea processing factory, utterly authentic and unchanged in over 100 years, before an afternoon swim in the 28c pool, and an evening bike ride through the villages and paddy fields before a candlelit dinner on our new jungle dining deck.
It had rained on and off for most of their first three days and yet they hadn’t wasted a minute. We rarely get consistent rain, but when we do, Sri Lanka, and in particular, our special corner, is the place to be, and this Australian couple were a lesson to us all in how to make the most of it.
