It took three days for us to arrive in
Bukit Batikap conservation forest, a local protected area as our destination for amphibian survey. We reached Bukit Batikap in the upstream of Posu River using three different modes of transportation; by air, land and water. With only two hours flight from Jakarta, we arrived at Tjilik riwut airport in Palangkaraya around 2 pm in local time, it was on Friday 28th March 2014, and it was a very unpleasant flight anyway,due to the poor weather condition with lots of air turbulence during the flight.
As we arrived in Palangkaraya, we stayed two nights in hotel for logistics and transport preparation, and to be in
contact with BOSF (The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation). We will visit their location for the survey in Central Kalimantan, a protected forest under Murung Raya District, so then we had to prepare letters for Dinas Kehutanan and also BKSDA in order to get the expedition's paper work done.
In the third
day, we left Palangkaraya around 11.00 am and heading to Tumbang Lahun, approximately
8 hours by double-cabin cars and then continued by motor-boat (called Ces locally) to Batu Ampar. We crossed several rivers, drifting in muddy road, while enjoying the fascinating view of the landscape.
It is supposed to be a three hour trip to reach Batu Ampar from
Tumbang Lahun, but due to the heavy rain last night, the river was so over flowing with water, plus logs
and litters so it was really hard for the boat to move around in the river especially at night!!. We finally reached Batu Ampar at 06.00 am in the
morning, instead of three hours, it took us a whole night slithering along Barito River.
We waited around 2 hours in Ampar to prepare the transportation to Camp B using two double cabin cars; Strada and hartop. It seems impossible using ordinary cars for the trip due to the badly unpaved logging road that has been constructed and used by logging and coal mining companies. We reached camp B in 6-7 hours from Batu ampar.
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Driving from Palangkaraya - Tumbang Lahun
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We waited around 2 hours in Ampar to prepare the transportation to Camp B using two double cabin cars; Strada and hartop. It seems impossible using ordinary cars for the trip due to the badly unpaved logging road that has been constructed and used by logging and coal mining companies. We reached camp B in 6-7 hours from Batu ampar.
