Horton hears a Who!
Horton Hears a Who! and Horton Plains - any connection?
Unfortunately I am a little older so I was the wrong generation for Sr Seuss and his book “Horton hears a Who!”. I have nieces and nephews who are keen Dr Seuss fans and I have bought his books for Christmas and Birthday present (or on demand!).
GlenMyu Estate is near to Horton Plains National Park (UNESCO) which is one of our favourite hikes. The trek is 11 kilometres long and takes in Lesser World’s End, Greater World’s End and Baker’s Falls. These three stopping points withe amazing views are the stars of the hike however, for us, the real highlights are the flora and fauna and completing the hike itself. Maybe this is a reflection of our age!
Horton Plains National Park
Horton Plains National Park is high on our list of places we recommend our guest to visit. To date, we have always had guests that have been delighted with our recommendation and understand why we love it. Lots of our guests have come back to GlenMyu Estate with photos of a clearer view of landscape than we have. I remember just seeing a clearest view at Lesser World’s End on our first hike and being covered in clouds at World’s End. It is called a Montane Cloud Forest for a very good reason.
From experience, we always recommend our guests to leave early from GlenMyu Estate, to give them the best opportunity to see a view at both Lesser World’s End and Greater World’s End. Fortunately Baker’s Falls is a decent down some stair within the National Park so you will always see a great view of the beautiful waterfall.
However, I have heard some locals saying they were disappointed that there wasn’t much water at a particular time of year. i suppose living in the country and being able to visit this wonder often makes you picky about what you see.
For me however, I was very happy with the flow of water and the beauty before my eyes. I always look at the rocks within the waterfall and think of the constant erosion resulting in an ever-changing natural phenomena. Travellers are looking for unique experiences and little do they realise that there is constant erosion of the rocks. What they see will not be seen by another tourist as the water flow and the water path is constantly changing.
Horton Hears a Who! and Horton Plains National Park
As I didn’t know anything of substance about Dr Suess, his books and the origin of the name of Horton Plains National Park, I thought I should do some “googling’
Spoiler alert! If you have not read the book and don’t want the plot revealed, please do not read on.
“Horton Hears a Who!” is a children’s book which was written by Theodor Seuss Geisel under his pen name Dr. Seuss.
The book was published in 1954 which surprised me. I would have thought I would have come across the book being a child of the mid 1960’s.
Horton is an Elephant and the story tells his adventures of saving a tiny planet on a speck of dust called Whoville. The animals in the Jungle of Nool want to destroy Whoville and try to steal the speck of dust and burn it.
Horton hears a voice from the speck of dust and discovers that it is the home to a tiny planet hosting a community called Whoville where the Whos live.
The Mayor of Whoville asks Horton to protect them from harm.
This story has a strong moral message.
The Whos represent the innocent and Horton the Elephant endures mocking and harassment in order to save the planet.
The significant phrase throughout the book is “a person is a person no matter how small”.
In order to save the planet from the unbelieving animals Horton ask the community in Whoville to make as much noise as they can.
Unfortunately the noise cannot be heard.
Eventually the Mayor carries JoJo to the top of Eiffelberg Tower and he shouts a large “Yopp” which creates enough noise for the kangaroos and the monkeys to hear the Whos.
Although this is not based upon Sri Lanka it’s funny how there are lots of elements that could relate to this island. We have elephants, jungles and an 870 metre precipice at Horton Plains called Greater World’s End. Maybe I’m just trying to engineer a connection!
Television and a Movie as well
The book was adapted for television in 1970 (I would have been a little too young to have seen this).
It turns out that, “Horton Hears a Who!” was also an animated movie which was released in 2008 and has Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell, Carol Burnett, Seth Rogan, Will Arnet, Isla Fisher, Jonah Hill and many other stars voicing the characters. Now I wish I’d seen the movie, but at my age, it’s probably a little too late! It scored 7/10 and 80% of the reviews were positive on Rotten Tomatoes so maybe I should have a look despite my age!
Horton Plains National Park
It turns out that Horton Plains National Park was actually named after Sir Robert Wilmot Horton (1831-1837) in honour of him being the Governor of Ceylon (the former colonial name for Sri Lanka).
Alas there is no connection between Dr Suess and Horton Plains National Park
Sadly there is no connection between the book and the national park.
However, maybe we could generate our own connection!
Maybe we could replace the Eiffelberg Tower with Greater World’s End and tourist who know the book could yell “Yopp”, like JoJo when they are standing at the side of the 870 metre prepice to let the outside world know they are there!
GlenMyu Estate - a day trip to Horton Plains National Park.
Lots of our guests at GlenMyu Estate leave early in the morning, with a fabulous packed breakfast prepared by Ruwanthi, to visit Horton Plains.
We are around one hour fifteen minutes drive from the entrance and it takes around three hours to complete the eleven kilometre hike. (off course it’s not a race and you can take longer if you want!)
We love the hike, and this is why it’s joint first with Upper Diyaluma Waterfall as recommendations to our guests to experience whilst on holiday at GlenMyu Estate.
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