"Still wild about Wildflower Cottage and its blissful tranquillity, 10th visit, September 1997," reads the sign hanging outside the reception office of the Kelburne Mountain View resort near Haputale. I was surprised to see that the sign, one I had painted 11 years ago, was still on display when I returned to Kelburne recently.
Mine is not the only sign. Every guest is given tins of paint and a blank board and invited to paint comments about their stay. The boards are nailed to branches to make cheery trees of welcome to arriving guests. Kelburne is such a homely place that most of those guests are regulars, foreigners and locals nostalgic for old-fashioned comfort, breathtaking views, log fires and the bliss of being away from it all.
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| A cuppa with a view from 1,500m. |
Kelburne consists of three individual bungalows that can be rented in their entirety. At 1,500m above sea level, they are perched on the edge of a view that seems to go on for ever and, on a clear day, the plains of Hambantota shimmer in the distance beyond rugged rolling hills. The resort, marked by a stern sign saying it is private property, is down an unsurfaced track that leads off the Haputale-Dambatenne Road.
Privacy is assured since no one goes to Kelburne without a reservation. Meals can be taken in a central garden pavilion or served by energetic stewards to guests in their bungalows. The main bungalow, Aerie, has two bedrooms both with attached bathrooms, two sitting rooms, and a large verandah overlooking the view. Rose Cottage, at a higher elevation, is more modern with three bedrooms. My favourite, Wildflower, can only be reached by a steep path of granite steps and, to my delight, I found it had been transformed since my last visit.
Its old corridor-like sitting room has been broadened into a magnificent parlour whose French windows fold back to reveal a 4-metre-wide framed view of hills, tea and forest stretching into the distance. When clouds and nightfall descend, the newly built fireplace is filled with blazing logs, the curtains are drawn and guests are warmed by a reassuring cosiness.
Wildflower Cottage has three bedrooms; two of them have a newly installed, attached tiled bathroom each with a massive rain-shower and lashings of hot water, and large fluffy towels. The third bedroom, with twin beds, has its bathroom across a central hall that is sometimes used as a breakfast or games room. This leads into the parlour where a round table for evening meals is set up in an adjoining dining alcove.
Ravi and Karnan who tend the bungalows have the caring manner of family retainers and proudly set the dining table with folded napkins, dotted with wildflowers to add to the dining pleasure. Meals cooked by Stanley, an obliging chef adept at colonial cuisine, are traditional. We had a fragrant fresh mushroom soup followed by roast beef and finishing up with a sensational crème caramel: comfort food in a cold climate.
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| Parlour with dining recess |
While the furniture is old in keeping with the 1950s period feel of the cottage, the tableware, linen and mattresses are modern. The cottage is furnished as though belonging to an old friend who has kindly lent it to you and wants you to make yourself feel at home. Mercifully, there is no television, but plenty of old magazines to leaf through. It has the laidback authenticity - and sense of a simpler past - that other plantation bungalows renovated to a fashion-magazine standard cannot emulate.
I enjoyed early morning tea in the garden as the sun rose, before sitting down to a table set up on the verandah for a hearty breakfast of beef curry and egg hoppers. Beyond the low boundary wall tea pluckers in brightly coloured saris swarmed over the hills deftly plucking the two top leaves and a bud needed for the best tea. Lacking their alacrity, I scrambled up a steep path behind the bungalow for a panoramic view of Haputale and the stippled quilt of hills beyond. The air was ripe with the heady scent of the countryside. It was good to be back.
Fifteen years ago when I first stayed at Kelburne I wrote about it in the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph and noted it cost 20 pounds a night to stay there. It's about three times that amount now, but still a bargain for a rare taste of the tea planters' life of the past.
(Email: mountainview@sltnet.lk) |
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