Above the Tea Line

• The hill line, above Hatton
• 11:40
• 19°C, cloud coming and going

The hill line climbs from Kandy in about four hours and everybody who has done it before goes and stands in the open doorway with a hand on the rail. I did that for most of it with a 200mm hanging off my shoulder, which was not a good idea and produced nothing usable except this one, taken with my elbow braced against the door frame while we went round the outside of a tea slope.

• Weighing shed, Nuwara Eliya estates
• 13:05

Weighing happens twice a day at a shed on the estate road and the leaf comes in in nylon net sacks that are exactly the shape of whatever has been leaning against them. Nobody was around. I like this frame more than most of my wildlife from that week and I am aware of what that says.

• Pedro estate, above Nuwara Eliya
• 16:40
• 12°C, fog, no wind

Every afternoon the cloud came up the valley and by half four the estate had about forty metres of visibility and the eucalyptus in the middle of the tea turned into outlines. There is nothing to photograph in it, which is why I went out in it. Wide open at 200mm, everything three trees back is gone.

the fog is why the tea is any good, apparently

• Above Hakgala
• 09:50
• 18°C, bright, dappled

Langurs in the hill forest above Hakgala have enormous white side-whiskers and a face like a disappointed schoolmaster, and they eat sitting down with both hands. This one was working through something in the canopy and glanced at me twice in eleven minutes. Neither glance was concerned. Shot at 200 wide open through a gap and it is still not sharp where I wanted it.