Horton Plains National Park, perched at nearly 2,100 metres above sea level in Sri Lanka’s central highlands, is a place of extraordinary ecological significance and stunning, wind-swept beauty, a high-altitude plateau of rolling grassland and cloud forest that represents one of the most dramatic landscapes in the entire island. This day tour requires an early start from a base in Nuwara Eliya or the surrounding highlands, arriving at the park gates before sunrise to begin the famous circular trail in the clearest and most wildlife-rich hours of the day. The trail leads through a landscape that shifts constantly between open grassland horizons, dense cloud-forest interior, and the occasional dramatic viewpoint, culminating at the cliff edge of World’s End, where the highland plateau falls away with vertiginous suddenness to the plains nearly a kilometre below. Baker’s Falls, a graceful tiered waterfall set within the forest section of the trail, provides a beautiful and refreshing pause on the return leg.