After spending the night at Meru Betiri National Park, we went to Alas
Purwo National Park: Sadengan (pic. 3), the forest itself (pic. 2 &
4), Parang Ireng beach (pic. 5), 'waiting for the car' beach (pic.6)
and Plengkung beach or G-land (pic. 7-10).
We're off from
Rajegwesi beach in Meru Betiri National Park at 10 am heading to Alas
Purwo National Park. We arrived there around 3 pm and went to Sadengan,
a place where you can see some wild animals on the savanna. It's too
bad that at that time not many animals around us. They're too far out
of our sight. However, seeing the green savannah itself is amazing.
They have different kind of green combined with the blue and white
color from the sky and the bright cloud. We didn't spend a lot of time
here.
After short visit to Sadengan, we continued to Plengkung
beach or G-land for sunset. It's still 4 pm and we thought we'll be too
early for sunset. Unfortunately as we arrived at Pancur (the starting
point to go to Plengkung beach), we found that some high rank police
officers from the city are also on the site with their families. So,
they didn't allow any cars to go inside. Only their cars. The distance
from Pancur to Plengkung beach is around 10 km. We took a walk for
about 4 km (1,5 hours). The good side of having no vehicles to go
inside, we were able to see and hear the black forest monkeys
screaming, hanging and jumping above us on the trees; the birds having
orchestrated singing and a little snake crossing the road. But it's
going dark soon and the road to Plengkung beach is still far away.
Luckily, a car operated by the national park management picked us up at
6 pm after we saw the sunset on the beach. At 5.30 pm, we're out from
the track in the forest to the beach on its right side. We still can't
go to Plengkung beach because the police and their families are still
there. The driver took us to a beach near a helipad. There we just sat
on a platform and had a chat with the driver. The beach and the top of
trees inside the forest are illuminated by the full moon's light. This
is the second time during this trip that we spend the night on the
beach under the moon light. It is amazing to know how bright actually
the full moon is. Usually its brightness is defeated by the city's
lamps. We went back to the guest house at 7.30 pm and met the forest
police patrolling on our way back.
We stayed at a guest house
in Trianggulasi beach. It's very tempting to go to the beach to see the
turtles as we can clearly hear the sound of the wave from our room.
But, I chose to sleep earlier at 10 pm as we had to go again tomorrow
morning to go back to Plengkung beach. Some of my friends still awake
until midnight.
We're off from the guest house at 5.30 am.
Aris seemed surprise to see our enthusiasm. We met the same driver as
last night in Pancur, the starting point, and of course took the same
antique off road specialist car again. This time, we arrived at
Plengkung beach around 6.15 am. The tide at its low level in the
morning, hence we could stroll along the beach line on the reef that
usually covered by the water. But, there's no big waves yet at that
time. The driver warned us to go up earlier as the sea water will
slowly become higher and we can be trapped on the reef. We finish our
roaming there at 7 am.
For surfer, Alas Purwo National Park is
known for its G-land or Plengkung beach. The driver told us about some
spot along the beach like tiger track, 20'-20', else. For some high
rank officials, Alas Purwo National Park is known for its caves for
meditating and asking for long lasting high level position in their
career, money, else that tend to be related to material things. I'll be
surprised if they ask for other people happiness instead of theirs. For
me, Alas Purwo National Park is known for being rather unknown.
We've
tried to chase the sunset in the forest; the turtle, the fishermen and
the waves on the beach; the bird on the air; the monkeys on the trees
and the garbage pile; the moon on the sky during our journey in
stunning Meru Betiri and Alas Purwo National Park. Now..it's time for
us to chase our flight back to Jakarta at 7.50 pm from Juanda
airport-Surabaya. We arrived on the airport at 6 pm to have our flight
delayed to > 8 pm. I can't noticed the time again :)
Pics are on http://perennialsteps.blogspot.com/2010/03/alas-purwo-national-park-feb10.html
