I was a little apprehensive at being placed in first class. With the luxury of air con, the windows are normally sealed and I desperately wanted one I could open for the sake of my camera. Luckily we had the entire back doorway carriage to ourselves, meaning we were free to hang out the side and catch glimpses of the conductor at each rounding of the tracks. Our blue toy train rattled along at a slow pace the entire way, passing the greenest of fields, tea plantation after tea plantation, forests of gum trees and fields of wild flowers. It was easy to see why it's named as one of the most beautiful rail journeys in the world. As we edged closer to Nuwara Eliya, and the misty heart of the hill country, the conductor walked through our carriage warning us of an incoming waterfall on the horizon.

After 3 hours, we slowly rumbled into Nanu-Oya, another traditional little station of two platforms, waiting rooms and a tonne of tuk-tuks waiting out the front. The mist slowly turned into a light rain as we jumped into one and hit the windy roads into the main town of Nuwara Eliya. This place is known as ‘little England’. It's green, rainy, grey and cold, so it's quite clear why. Locals were decked out in beanies and scarves, which I thought was a little excessive. It is also home to a collection of beautiful colonial buildings and horse racing tracks, tudor cottages and manicured golf courses. Our guesthouse was one of these relics of the past - a 150 year old mansion, the former residence of an English lord. When we arrived the place was deserted, so we threw our bags back on and went in search of lunch. On the way back, a car pulled up beside us asking ‘are you the australians?’ It was Roshan, our host for the next two nights. We piled into his car, grateful for the lift and headed back to the house to sleep off the journey and prepare for our hike early the next morning - the legendary World's end.

We woke at 4.15am, dressed and ready for our pre arranged tuk-tuk. It was really dark and really cold, but our little tuk-tuk was all wrapped up in its weatherproof covers, so we stayed nice and snug inside. The drive out to the plains took about 2 hours and we arrived at the ticket office just as the light was beginning to break. The office sat in a cloud of fog as we paid our way and managed to manoeuvre the tuk-tuk through the dense pile of vans and cars that had pulled up. We were required to endure the motor journey for another 20 minutes before we were dropped at the terracotta pathway leading into the depths of the national park.

The plains were beautiful and quiet and we almost had the trail to ourselves. In fact, the only sound I can recall was the steady chime of hidden frogs. The grassy hills rolled on forever as the fog moved at tremendous speeds across the landscape. A thick forest kept us protected from the winds for most of the journey as the path took us up and down what looked like an ancient river bed. The trees begun to open up and we could feel an escarpment coming on. The first lookout point was aptly named mini worlds end, the slightly less impressive sibling of what everyone ventures into these lands to witness. Another 15 minutes of walking delivered us to the famous escarpment. 880 meters above the ground. We were the first there that morning, and had the platforms and rockfalls to ourselves for a little while as the sun peeked through the clouds and the sky seemed to circle above us in fast-forward. We had read all the warnings about the ‘white wall’ which moves in around 10am, so we were delighted with the clear views across the valley and over the rivers far in the distance.

The trail looped back through beautiful yellow hills, blue streams and white swirls of cloud. We passed by Bakers falls before making the last 4 kilometre trek through hills of rhododendron to the start point, where our driver was fast asleep on the back seat of the tuk-tuk. On our drive out of the park we encountered a large sambar deer feasting on the grassy fields along the road.

Now that the sun was out, farms of rhubarb, pear, strawberry, cow, wind and turnip showed themselves as we zoomed past village bound. Our driver realllly wanted to extend our excursion with a waterfall or city tour, but all we could think about was coffee, so we parted ways at the grand hotel where we dined on brownies and cappuccinos. We wandered home the long way, checking out Victoria park and the post office building.

We spent the rest of our time that afternoon catching up on naps and Game of Thrones and packing our bags one last time before heading to the airport the following day, Thailand bound.

The bus back to Colombo was windy, long and involved vomit (not ours, thankfully). We basically went back to Kandy and along the main highway to reach the western shores we had left a month ago. We decided to brave a few bus interchanges and somehow managed to get dropped off right near our airport hotel thanks to a series of helpful conductors.

In true Sri Lankan style, our last meal was a rice and curry feast. I sure will miss this wonderful island.