Back To Origin

A pleasant water-body with a rocky area was in my dreams for many years.

On the first day I reach this place I felt there is a remarkable formation in this area to create a nice waterbody or reservoir. There were two high ground areas closing together, right at the correct place to build a bund or dam to make a reservoir with cascading landscape above that place.
Astonishingly, I found that a considerable quantity of rainwater falling to acres of uplands of the area flow across this section and fall into a natural stream without any use every year. That means, our future tank has enough catchment area to get its water supply from rain gods.

Location of the Dam

This is the place where we hope to build the dam.

I take the photo standing on the high ground at the right end of the proposed dam .

An existing water logged area is there at the left side of the place. As per the villagers, wild elephants came here to bath during dry seasons in early days. Nabada wila නැබඩ [Nebada tree] (Vitex leucoxylon)

We planned to build the dam during the dry season in March 2015 and did as planned.

Proposed tank is in Blue colour

Image taken from Google Earth.
7°45'52.8"N 80°18'39.5"E

This is the plan view.

We wanted to build an earth filled dam connecting adjoining high grounds to block water flow from rocky area and lands above it.

It will create a reservoir with nice rock garden hundreds of meters spreading along the upstream area of the tank.

Paddy lands are indicated in green color.

Once filled , the water is enough to cultivate paddy for two seasons. In addition we hope to use the water to irrigate other land crops.

Construction is in progress. My topmost golaya or manager 'Somei' is watching.

At the left side we can see the water logged area. At the right side i.e. downstream of the dam we have our paddy lands. (already harvested last season)

One of the tractor drivers created delays due to his inexperience. The excavator man (Priyantha) is helping him to re-position the toppled trailer.

We borrowed earth from nearby high grounds expanding the extent of land available for paddy cultivation. (double gain )

Priyantha's Excavator. Rs.2500 / clock hour

after the 100th 'tractor load' of the day

A great relief

This is at 3.43 p.m. 30th March 2015.

We are nearing the completion of the first stage of earth filling.

I am in the down side of the dam to take this image. We felt great relief as we reached the end of this important stage without any major hassle.

Before and After ....

ගල් තලාව උඩ සිට පහත දිස්වන අයුරු

Before making of the tank වැව බඳින්න කලින් ඒ ප්‍රදේශය කන්ද උඩ සිට දිස්වූ අයුරු

- After -

20 hrs after we completed the work heavy seasonal rains started.
A big thank for weather gods for keeping their hefty loads of H2O until we finish our work.

වැව් බැම්ම පුරවා හරියටම දිනකට පසු දිනයේ සිට ඇරඹුන යල් වැසි දියෙන් පිරී ඇති වැව - මැයි 2015

ජය වේවා !
වසර දහස් ගණනක් පුරා අනාගතයේ ජීවත් වන මිනිසුන් හා සතුන් ට මේ වැවේ රැස්වන ජලයෙන් සෙතක් ප්‍රයෝජනයක් වේවා !

෴*෴

Yes, this is the place I saw in my dreams !

....... This formation was amazing.

It was like mother nature has crated everything for me except the dam !.

She was waiting millions of years for me to come here and complete her work.

.... and I did it before I end my life on Earth.

You can come here and enjoy everything
a night with millions of twinkling stars upwards and plenty of natural beauties downwards

-free of charge-

(if you are lucky you may meet up with an albino cobra- a sacred one as per the villagers and some wild animals also )

Update 16th July 2015

For the first time, today I was fortunate to see a deer coming towards our tank.අද දින ප්‍රථම වරට මෙහි ගැවසෙනවා යැයි අප අනුමාන කළ මුව රංචුවේ එක මුව පොව්වකු මට සියැසින් දැක ගන්න ට හැකිවිය. මිට පෙර ඉත්තෑවන්, හාවුන් හා මීමින්නන් ද රාජාලියන් මොණරුන් ඇතුලු විවිධ වර්ග වල කුරුල්ලන් ද දැක ඇත්තෙමි.

Update Feb 2016
New visitors to the tank

වියලි කාලය පැමිණෙත්ම ප්‍රදේශයේ ජල මූලාශ්‍ර සිඳී යයි.
එවිට විවිධ පක්‍ෂීහූ ජලය ඉතිරිව ඇති වැව් කරා ඇදී එති. මෙ ස්ථානය හඳුනා ගත් එවන් පක්‍ෂීන් එය තම පුරුදු තැනක් බවට පත්කර ගැනීම සිදුවේ. මේ එලෙස නිතර දෙවේලේ මෙහි සිටින දෙවර්ගයක කොකුන් ය.