I was looking forward to breakfast this morning.

Yesterday we had a late high tea, complete with bubbles, so we skipped dinner. I woke up hungry !

You may have heard me mention egg hoppers , once or twice so far in this blog. I love them.

They are a light rice type pancake cooked in a bowl shaped pan and when half cooked an egg is broken into it.

After my paw paw topped with curds and treacle I headed for the hopper station.

A lovely smiling lady greeted me again this morning. I complimented her on the hopper and said I needed her to move to Brisbane to make me an egg hopper each day. She said I could buy a pan and recipe to take home and she could teach me.

So the next minute I’m behind the stove learning how to make a hopper.

Season the pan!

Rub with a mix of butter and egg yolk

Heat the pan. Spoon in the rice pancake mix. Then swirl it around.

Heat with the lid down.

Wait until the edges are browning. Crack the egg in.

Lid on. Wait

Use the spatula to loosen around edges and slide onto a plate.

It was such a fun lesson with this lovely lady.

From here it was onto the bus to the lake nearby. It’s a man made lake and gives an area for recreation- little boats, jet ski, fishing , walking but I doubt anyone swims there. It’s a little brown.

Back to the bus I was sitting up the back swaying as we went round corners.

Helen and I started writing limericks. We set a challenge to everyone to have one ready to read at drinks tonight.

It was definitely heads down to work on our limerick. Which was a blessing as the narrow road was dangerous to watch. Trucks overtaking trucks or buses overtaking tuk tuks. Not for the feint hearted.

The landscape was covered with terraces and everywhere there were vegetables growing and tea plantations. The soil is rich and the labour plentiful.

By now the constantly winding road was making me – and others, feel a little sick. We stopped for a break before heading into Ella.

This was a little surprise. It felt like a young people place. Lots of bars and coffee shops dotted along the narrow road.

Arriving at our accommodation we climbed up a stone staircase to be met by golf buggies to drive us to reception-an open air hut.

The cold tea and the little welcome sash was a fun way to greet us at this very special place. There are 28 cabins set among the tea bush plantings of a working farm. The workers walk past our cabins at breaks and at the end of the day.

Our rooms are large, rustic but so well planned the walls are made of tea boxes, there’s a huge bed with a net over it, a spacious stone bathroom and views towards cloud covered mountains.

The mist rolled as we had a late lunch then drinks in one of the rooms.

We’re doing well emptying the gin bottles. But there are 17 of us!

We read our limericks. They were great!

Here’s a sample:

‘There was a great gal called Carmel

Who thought it wouldn’t be harmful

To go for a trip

with old friends with some zip

Now she’s shaking her head, poor Carmel. ‘

Dinner was up in the main restaurant and was quite a performance with each dish delivered with a cloche which were ceremonially removed.

Tomorrow we are climb up Little Adams peak. Not the big Adam walk which is longer, harder and more of a pilgrimage.

Legend has it:

Adam’s Peak is a 2,243 m (7,359 ft) tall conical mountain located in central Sri Lanka. It is well known for the Sri Pada, i.e., “sacred footprint”, a 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) rock formation near the summit, which in Buddhist tradition is held to be the footprint of Buddha , in Hi du tradition that of Shiva and in some Islamic and Christian tradition that of Adam or that of St. Thomas.

So we are not attempting the pilgrimage . We’ll do the shorter climb then back up by walking to the 9 arches railway bridge.

So to sleep in our very luxurious cabin on the tea plantation.