Colonial appeal fulfills Vogue tropical-picture-shoot-design at Rosyth Estate Residence. Two several hours north of Colombo airport, Rosyth Estate Residence is the ideal smooth-landing location for a Sri Lanka arrival.
Homeowners Farzana and Neil Dobbs creatively merge the retro model of the primary 1926 tea planter’s bungalow with up to date style flair.
Set in the 62 acres of a tea and rubber plantation, Rosyth supplies a range of onsite Sri Lankan experiences: early morning yoga, cookery classes, a plantation walk, spa solutions, tea-tasting at their new tea-factory and excellent domestically inspired cuisine.
The welcome
Rosyth Estate organized for a driver to fulfill us at the airport and deliver us to this luxurious boutique hotel a pair of miles from Kegalle.
While porters just take luggage to our suite, we are welcomed with a chilled ginger and cinnamon tea. Furthermore a therapeutic massage for exhausted feet.
Lots of a weary traveller, soothed by the masseur’s palms, straight away book their first spa procedure.
The suite
Clove plants, wrapped with pepper creeper, and tea trees appropriately line the route to the Tea suite. Jack tree wooden, quickly mistaken for the rich deep tones of mahogany, frames the large windows and doors.
Each individual line of sight within the light room focuses on a remarkable plunging valley of mahogany, palm and nevertheless a lot more clove and tea trees. White wisps of cloud partly obscure a distant craggy peak.
Textured oriental rattan runs from the bedhead, via the suite and out on to the chairs and sunlight-loungers on the terrace. A gentleman’s valet stand, with a drawer for cufflinks, is a Somerset Maugham days-of-empire touch. Burnt orange blinds provide dashes of colour to the straightforward colour plan.
A wall guiding the bed offers storage and proficiently a dressing area. A discreet alcove neatly residences the fridge as effectively as the tea and coffee services. Nothing is permitted to detract from the main attraction: the panoramic view.
The rest room
The inside toilet has two clean basis and a shower.
Outside, on the terrace, an indulgent deep bathtub yet again appears to be out about the valley.
The facilities
Fresh new fruit platters together with Sri Lankan egg hoppers are the stars of breakfasts served in the eating pavilion. Burgers, salads, soups and wraps are available all through the day.
In the evenings, a staff of seasoned chefs operate via a repertoire of conventional Sri Lankan favourites. Supper for Sri Lankans is not just rice and one particular curry of beef, rooster, fish or veggies but an array of maybe bean, aubergine, purple lentil and spinach curries as perfectly as a sambal speckled with chilli flakes. And, then of system, a dahl as well.
Stay three or 4 evenings and you’ll love the flaming food stuff-theatre of Sri Lankan avenue food items, as chefs’ chopping knifes clash like cymbals.
Sunshine-loungers encompass a sapphire of a swimming pool. Pick out a reserve from the library and chill out for an hour or two.
Consider a plantation walk with naturalist Hetti past the natural vegetable gardens. Then he’ll reveal how the estate’s rubber trees are tapped. Some of that rubber will locate its way into latex surgical gloves.
Site
A 20 minute travel potential customers to Pinnawala in which you can stroll with elephants and feed them an outsize fruit salad. A mere aperitif for the 150kg of foods they eat each and every working day. Support with elephant bath time far too.
Kandy, residence of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth with its manmade lake, is only an hour absent. Go over your legs and shoulders, use a manual and get off your shoes for an introduction to the legacy of the twenty eighth Buddha. Our guide emphasises that followers do not pray. They worship.
A free tour spherical Kandy’s Herb and Spice gardens is a specific introduction to the aspect-influence-totally free miracles of Ayurvedic medicine but you may perhaps would like to resist the income pitch on pink oil for arthritic knees, infant pineapple for pounds decline and therapies that get the job done to sleek skin.
“No Nivea, no Ponds,” exhorts our manual eyeing up our wrinkles. On a grander scale there are the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kandy.
Other pleasant touches
This is mild and honest Sri Lankan hospitality at its quite most effective. Half the staff emerge to wave goodbye, as if we ended up royalty.
The Dobbs supplied function on the estate to the 70 family members who had dropped careers when the close by tea factory burnt down, even although they were being not the entrepreneurs. They proceed to provide breakfast for nearby university children 3 instances a 7 days.
Hetti, the naturalist, understands the whereabouts of each individual frog and gecko close to the estate dwelling, understanding too when the pond lilies will open up their bouquets.
The ideal bit
The Dobbs are working to redesign a single smaller aspect of Sri Lanka’s troubled tea business. Significantly, recruiting pluckers, keen to acquire a mere £3 a working day for prolonged hrs in rough tropical problems, is becoming tough.
Rosyth’s pluckers decide on a person leaf and a bud, fairly than the traditional two leafs and a bud, to create a hand-rolled artisan tea. Profits from this substantial-close item are shared amongst the workers.
Guests on the tea-tasting practical experience, finding out how to roll and slurp, shift by inexperienced tea to medium high-quality teas and eventually to a pink-rimmed clear amber liquid totally free of any bitter hints. Much taken off from day-to-day builder’s day this is the Dom Perignon of teas.
The value
A a few night time remain in minimal time commences from £390 per man or woman, dependent on two sharing a Common Place, excluding flights and transfers.
The remaining verdict
Rosyth’s 10 rooms assortment throughout budgets from the initial very simple rooms in the bungalow to the uber-lavish Rock Villa.
Featuring excellent Sri Lankan foods, Rosyth Estate Residence is a magnificent base camp for a tour of the island or for a remaining number of days of peace right before heading for the airport.
Disclosure: Our remain was sponsored by Rosyth Estate Household.
