Day 23 - We're going on an elephant hunt!

Nothing much better than opening the room's door straight onto a view of the sea and sunrise.. We got up nice and early to try and do a spot of surfing before breakfast. The waves were a little disappointing more like little ripples so we decided against the surfing idea and instead we went for a run! Despite only being about 8am the sun was so so strong, it was a very sweaty run, the beach is really long though ideal for running. We got to the end of arugum bay and found that the waves were a little bigger so we will try surfing up there tomorrow. After our run we went and had breakfast with Jess and Yasmin who had been for a surf lesson, I had fresh fruit, pineapple, papaya and banana with curd which is similar to creme fraiche, a nice and fresh breakfast! Then we tried to do a bit more planning of our travels, it's so hard to try and fit everything in there is so much to see and do here! We were chatting to the guy who owns this place and we were saying how disappointed we were that we hadn't seen any elephants in yala, so he said there are loads of wild elephants nearby here and he organised a jeep to come and take us around to find some! So after a few hours chilling on the beach we all went off to track down some elephants! We didn't have to go far, just down the road Rachel spotted the first elephant with an almighty excited shriek! He wasn't too far away just strolling along In a field next to the road, we got out of a the jeep and walked a bit closer to take some photos, nothing beats seeing elephants out in their natural habitat it was incredible! We then went on driving for about an hour spotting numerous other elephants along with crocodiles and peacocks! At some points the driver appeared quite edgy about the elephants charging so that added an additional adrenaline rush! Lastly the driver took us to climb 'elephant rock' which really was quite a steep climb up a rock face!! I was scared of snakes and he said that was why he was walking at the front, this did not comfort my thoughts!! At the top of elephant rock the views were beautiful and we were there just before sunset so the colour of the sky was gorgeous, it looked over the coast and some of the inland areas and we spotted monkeys and an elephant from up on the rock.

Back at beach hut we had dinner with yasmin and Jess for the last time and played some cards before hitting the sack nice and early again. The guy in the cabana next to us has an acoustic guitar and we are currently lay here listening to him sing and play with the sea noises in the background.. Heaven