Bali and back to the UK for a month

Ijen Crater

Green Turtle returning to the sea

Java continued to surprise and delight. After leaving Surabaya we headed back to the south coast where we made our way to the south east corner of the island stopping at two National Parks on the way. The first, Betiri National Park includes Sukamunde Beach, a 5km stretch of sand where on average 6 turtles nest each night. The beach is patrolled by a team of park rangers who collect all the turtle eggs as soon as they are laid and move them to a protected hatchery. between 45 and 60 days later the turtles hatch and they then release them at night, to try and make the process as natural as possible. They have to do this as there is an overpopulation of wild boar and hunting lizards who will dig up and eat the eggs, not to mention local poachers for whom the eggs are a delicacy.

Turtle Hatchlings

Surfing the Wave

Consequently every night 6 rangers patrol the beach between 7.00pm and 4.00am. Despite being very difficult to get to - it requires a 4WD with low ratio - tourists, us included, can join the rangers and watch as the turtles come ashore and lay their eggs. the night we were there 6 turtles came up the beach around 8.00pm, but none laid eggs. All six turtles returned later in the night and six lots of eggs were collected. To build a better understanding the hatchlings from 10% of a nest can be released by tourists in the early morning - around 6.30am (all the others are released at night) so we could see the hatchlings scuttle down the beach to the sea. In daylight they have more predators, and a couple of sea eagles were waiting in the trees behind the beach. It was fantastic to watch the green turtle as she made her way back to the sea, and amazing how large they are. With just flippers to move themselves it takes an enormous effort.
The second National Park - Alas Purwo - is at the south east corner of Java and is noted for two features; first it houses the largest herd of wild Bantung cattle in Indonesia, and secondly it has one of the worlds best surfing waves. The surfers are concentrated in one small area where there are two very exclusive surf camps, again accessed by a very potholed, muddy road, and they tend to stay in the camp. The Banteng cattle roam the other side of the park, grazing on open meadows. In with the banteng there were some deer, and green pea fowl, one which repeatedly displayed to its harem of pea-hens.

Banteng Cattle

On our last couple of days we went to Ijen Crater - famous for its sulphur miners who carry 70kg loads of virtually pure sulphur out of the crater. This is a desolate but beautiful location with a turquoise, and very acidic, lake in the crater and clouds of sulphur vapours emitted from the vents. The amounts of vapour increased in March this year making the downwind side of the crater very unpleasant.
We are now on Bali and after spending a night in the crater of another volcano at the foot of a lava flow from 1968, we have parked our van in the car park of a small hotel, whose owner has been kind enough to let us leave it here while we return to the UK. There will be no more blog postings until July!

Javan Black Langur

Sulphur Carrier

Displaying green peafowl and three disinterested pea hens