Tea Trails by Bicycle from Nuwara Eliya

(SKU: LK77007FEC) This tour takes you on a downhill cycling ride from Nuwara Eliya to Kandy. Enjoy the landscapes filled with green tea estates and misty blue hills. Stop by a tea factory to get to know more about tea and how it tea leaves are made. Experience tea plucking as it is done by the natives. Have a cup of hot tea that brings you warmth on this cold ride through the highlands of Sri Lanka.

Highlights:

• Tea Factory Visit.
• Tea Plucking Experience

Includes:

• Cycles and Cycling guide/ supporting crew.
• Back up vehicle. (Cycle Carrier)
• Water and refreshments during the ride.

Experience:

You will be starting your tour from the center of Nuwara Eliya City at 8:00 am. The mountain bikes, helmets and other equipment will be provided. There will also be an experienced cycling guide and a back up vehicle accompanying you. As you start you will be given clear instructions on the route, which will be 85km long.

Your trail will take you on a downhill ride as you descend from 1868m above sea level in Nuwara Eliya to a much lower 500m in Kandy. The ride will be exhilaratingly fast, but you will have to maintain good control of your bike to avoid it slipping or crashing at corners. The pretty green tea estates, distant mountains, graceful waterfalls and the mist enshrouding those far away corners will create a landscape out of dreams. The cold wind whizzing past your ears, the rush of adrenaline as you take sharp corners on mountain roads, the sight and feel of the sun on your skin giving you places of warmth that contrast with your wind chilled body, the blur of images that you just catch sight of from the corner of your eye; these will all be things that you will take home embedded in your memory as the best points of this bike tour.

Along the way you will be stopping by a tea estate, where you will meet some tea pluckers. You can speak to them with translations from your guide, and get to know about their lives and the challenges they face. You will learn how to pick out the best tea leaves and pluck tea from the natives who have been doing it for many generations. Then you can wear a tea basket and try your hand at plucking tea.

You will then visit a tea factory where you will experience how the plucked leaves are turned into tea. You will also learn more about the varieties and qualities of processed tea leaves. There will be opportunities for you to buy fresh tea leaves as souvenirs. You can also have a cup of pure, hot, Ceylon tea and let it warm up the chill that you accumulated from biking through the cold mountains.After spending some time there you will continue downhill on your route. You will get to Kandy and complete.