Day 310: Penang National Park

Feb 7 - Janet’s knee is hurting so Odette and I go off today on Bus #101 for the Penang NP. It takes about an hour to get to the town of Teluk Bahang. Due to road construction in the town, the bus doesn’t currently go to its final stop, so we have to disembark and walk through the town. We grab rice and fish to eat along the way in case there are no lunch options within the park.

The park ticket system has the usual Malaysian flaw: the office is on their two-hour lunch break and cannot issue any entry tickets. It is a mystery to me why this needs to be the case. I am more understanding of why restaurants here have odd opening hours, often with two separate closing times during the day, because of anticipated drops in client numbers. But a park entrance is not like that.

The boat ride was 100 RM both ways.

The north shore of Penang NP. There are some short beaches but most of the shoreline is rocky. All the outcrop I saw here was granite.

The park does offer a ‘solution’ to this. A boat can be hired to go to Monkey Beach (Teluk Duyung), where both the beach and a short hiking trail can be accessed. But it isn’t possible to do anything else until 14:00. I don’t feel like sitting around for two hours so we take the boat. The captain lets us off at the far end of the beach where a trail goes up the hill to Muka Head lighthouse.

Some macaques on the trail.

A hammerhead flatworm on a rotten log.

I thought these ants were on the move because they needed a new home. But we saw several columns like this today, leading me to think that type ant type is always moving.

Muka Head lighthouse. Oddly, it was required to remove shoes before going up the stairway to the top. No one was here to enforce that, but we took them off anyway.

Good views to the north.

The trip to the lighthouse takes about 30 minutes. Not much else to do up here, so head back down to the beach, where there are a few basic hut accommodations and a small restaurant. It is here that I am able to contact the boat to let him know we are ready for the return trip.

The most exciting thing here, besides the monkeys scrounging for food, was the rope swing.

Back at the park entrance, quickly enter the park proper. Odette really wants to go to Turtle Beach (Pantai Kerachut). I warn her that (1) we are extremely unlikely to see turtles, and (2) it is three hours walk round trip. These points do not deter her, so off we go.

Adverlabs Beach, just five minutes from the park entrance. If we had time, this would have been a great place to hang out. Almost devoid of people.

Except for a water monitor, scrounging for carrion.

The trail goes up over a ridge and down to the western coastline. The jungle is fairly thick, and we see very little sun as is typical of a well-developed canopy forest.

One of the streams. This one is draining into a small lake by Turtle Beach.

This unremarkable-looking mudflat is a meromictic lake, one of only three in Asia. When flooded (high tide and during rainy season), there are two layers of water (salt and fresh) that do not mix. Hence, to distinct biomes develop.

The bridge over the connection between the meromictic lake and the ocean.

The connection with the ocean, and a portion of the north end of Turtle Beach. The turtles that come here to lay eggs are hawksbill.

Our consolation prize for turtles was to see numerous tracks, where they drag themselves ashore and dig nests. This particular nest is probably a fake, in that the turtles often make multiple excavation but only lay eggs in one, to confuse predators.

Turtle Beach was even more peaceful, with only a few other people wandering around. Swimming is not permitted here due to dangerous offshore currents. It is already getting late afternoon so we head back along a different trail that loops back to the first one.

This was one of the few elevated walkways, through a swampy area.

Back to George Town by 19:00, meet up with Janet and eat some dinner.

Malaysia I