North of Kandy the hills rise into a jagged massif that British surveyors thought looked like the knuckles of a clenched fist, and the name stuck: the Knuckles Range. It is one of the three parts of the Central Highlands World Heritage site, together with the Peak Wilderness and Horton Plains, and it is the wildest and least visited. The mountains are covered with montane forest, cloud forest at the highest points, grasslands and steep valleys with rivers and waterfalls. The weather changes fast; mist can sweep in over a ridge in minutes, and the air is noticeably cooler than in the plains. Many plants, frogs and lizards here exist nowhere else on Earth.
The road that makes this region famous with riders climbs from Matale through Rattota and up to Riverstone, a pass at the edge of the range. It is a steep, narrow road with a long series of hairpins, a crumbling edge in places and spectacular views over terraced valleys and the dry plains to the north. At the top, the forest closes in, and on a misty day the trees seem to drip with moss. Beyond Riverstone the road continues down towards Illukkumbura and the villages on the other side. Further south, Corbett's Gap offers another famous viewpoint, approached by smaller, rougher roads. Ride carefully: rain makes the surface slippery, and landslides happen.
The lowland approach is rich in history. Matale is a town surrounded by spice gardens, where you can see cinnamon, pepper, cardamom and nutmeg growing, and just north of the town is the Aluvihare rock temple, where, according to tradition, Buddhist monks first wrote down the Pali canon in the first century BC. Kandy, the last royal capital, with the Temple of the Tooth, lies to the south, and Sigiriya, with its rock fortress, is a good day's ride to the north.
Matale, about twenty kilometres away, is the town for fuel, shops and accommodation. Bring a jacket, even if it is warm in the plains, and leave early in the morning, when the views are clearest before the clouds build up.