Sri Lanka Castleragh Reservoir Surroundings

Growing up in Dickoya District with Castlereagh Reservoir Surroundings!

As a young school boy I used to take a public transport which was plying from Norton Bridge to Hatton and I had to board the bus at Osborne Tea Plantation where I was born and spent most part of my young age. The “School Bus” as it was called was the only public transport between these two points, just two runs per day, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon for the benefit of school children. Of course, a few adult passengers too made use of the transport.

I recollect, sometime in 1958, all of a sudden huge machinery and workers from the locality and beyond appeared from nowhere on our bus route just a couple of miles from our school bus stop. They started digging, clearing tea bushes, cut trees and started cutting a number of small roads at the place which was part of a large tea estate called Castlereagh. Soon, a number of “huge” white men arrived all wearing helmets and boots, and I learnt they were from Germany and later understood them to be engineers who specialized in building dams. Thus, construction of one of the largest and most important dams in Sri Lanka came into being. Slowly and steadily the dam rose up with a bridge over it. One fine day, the old bridge connecting the two hills on either side was closed and the tiny bazaar too was closed down.

The Dam was built across Kehelgamuwa Oya river, about 3 km south-west of Hatton, starting from Norwood and run towards Norton where there is a dam over which lies the Norton Bridge. The river itself is a major tributary river for Kelani River.

I vividly remember the day a big commotion breaking up in the Carfax Bazaar, part of Castlereagh tea estate close to the dam-site. The shop keepers had been given notice just a month before to vacate and move their shops to a place above the water level which was going to be filled up soon after the dam was completed. No one bothered to move. In the meantime, the authorities decided to shut the dam valves to fill up the lands earmarked to make the reservoir. This morning the shop keepers were caught unawares and faced the reality. They scrambled to collect whatever they could and move out to avoid the rising waters now knocking on their door steps. A small bazaar came up at the place they were allocated with timber and roofing sheets, pending compensation from the authorities. They received it or not, the temporary sheds forming the new bazaar continued to be there for the next ten years or more.

The sudden closure of the old bridge gave rise to another problem. Since the new bridge being built was not complete and we had to take a long route to our school in Hatton that was through Norton Bridge, on the Rozella-Watawala road which took an extra hour on travelling. Finally, the bridge was declared open by a VIP and our travelling was eased. It was a thrilling day when we saw the new bridge and the reservoir rapidly filling up with water and saddened to see my favorite Carfax Bazaar being re-built, seemingly without any plan for permanent structures. Very few people even bothered to keep their businesses due to the bad location for customers.

The dam created an iconic reservoir called Castlereagh Reservoir which later became a beautiful landscape. A 12 km long tunnel was later built to divert the water to Norton dam to Wimalasurendra Power Station consisting of two 25-megawatt units, totaling the plant capacity to 50 MW. Both units were commissioned in January 1965. The tunnel was constructed by a Swedish firm, I recollect as Skanska WP.

Within a few months after the completion of the dam, the forest department started planting trees right around the catchment area with a view to prevent soil erosion. In a few years the trees grew up and the whole area became a spectacularly beautiful place. A number of tea estate bungalows were later renovated and converted as Tourist Bungalows. Today, most of them are continuously occupied by local and foreign tourists.

The entire landscape of the tea plantation area changed, old roads, a tea factory, several houses and workers’ cottages and a bridge were submerged in water. A Hindu Temple at Carfax Bazaar too went under water and even today, it shows itself up whenever the water level goes down during droughts. Only a few old folks like me may still remember how the entire land looked like prior to being swallowed up by the reservoir.

In my latter days, I happened to work at another tea plantation and the bungalow I lived with my family overlooked the reservoir from a different angle, but it looked beautiful from whichever angle you look at.