Horton Plains is a high-altitude plateau at 2,100 metres above sea level – a protected national park of cloud forest and open grassland in the central highlands. The trail to World’s End is the reason most people come: a 9km circular walk through montane forest and open moorland that ends at a sheer escarpment with a 900-metre drop to the lowland plains far below. On a clear morning, arriving before 9am, the view extends all the way to the south coast, which is exactly why the pre-dawn drive from Nuwara Eliya matters as much as it does – the cold highland air, the trail through cloud forest still dark at the edges and then the moment the plateau simply opens at the escarpment edge.