Photos of my visit to Yala National Park, which I visited while staying at the nearby town of Tissamaharama.
Yala is known for its leopard population, although it is also home to numerous other species. I had only one leopard sighting, but a good one: a solitary leopard, lolling on the gravel road, with a group of peacocks behind it tut-tutting like a Greek chorus.
It was straight ahead of my car, which meant that photography would have been difficult: aiming through the windscreen and between the heads of two men in the front seat. I knew what I had to do, and the experience of my trans-African journey by Bedford four-wheel-drive truck in 1978-79 gave me the inspiration. Clutching my camera securely, I climbed out the open side of my safari car and onto the roof, from where I had an unimpeded view and snapped away until the animal moved.
Yala is an immensely popular park and, at busy times, a scrum can develop when safari cars converge on a leopard. I was fortunate to be there outside the tourist season and saw few other cars.
Otherwise, as usual with wildlife safaris, I drove around the park, looking for animals and admiring the scenery. Wildlife spotting requires an early start so my hotel provided a packed breakfast. Yala is bordered on one side by the sea, so I ate my picnic on a sandy beach with the Indian Ocean roaring in front of me and leopards and elephants growling and grunting in the bush behind me.
Just behind the beach are the ruins of two guesthouses, where several Japanese tourists were killed when the tsunami of December 2004 hit the shore. Now the ruins are preserved as a memorial.