Pekoe Trail Stage 3 Guided Hike from Kandy: Loolkandura to Tawalantenne

The Pekoe Trail is a 300-kilometre waymarked route through Sri Lanka's tea country, opened in 2023 and built almost entirely on paths that already existed: the estate roads, the plucking tracks and the footpaths that connected the plantations before there were roads between them.

Stage 3 starts at Loolkandura, which is where the whole industry began. James Taylor planted the first commercial tea in Ceylon here in 1867 on 19 acres, after coffee blight destroyed the island's previous crop. His bungalow's foundations and the original factory site are still on the estate, and the tea growing around them is descended from those plantings.

From there the trail runs to Tawalantenne along the contours, which is the pleasure of walking in tea country — the paths follow the hillside rather than climbing over it, so the effort stays moderate while the views keep opening. You pass through working estates with pluckers at work, past line rooms where estate families have lived for generations, and along ridges with the Knuckles range across the valley.

A guide matters on this stage: the history is invisible without one, and the estate paths branch constantly.