Adang Island - Tarutao National Park
We got up this morning and felt energized. How could we make good use of this? Let’s try going for a hike through the jungle for the day in 31°C bright sunshine.
From our resort we headed into the jungle / forest. We walked about 35 minutes to the Ranger Station on Adang Island in Tarutao National Park. We came prepared with lots of water, in fact 3 bottles. So once we got to the National Park we made use of their canteen and rested while we each had a beer and a plate of fruit. After our drink, we wandered around the campground where you can rent tents and camp on the beach under huge long needle fir trees. It’s quite pretty and quiet there. The rent for a tent and 2 people would be just over $15.00 CAD per night.
We wandered around to the start of the trail to the look out which is up the mountain behind the campground area. Off we went. It didn’t take long to become overheated. We took it really slow. We met a guy on the trail with a little girl about 5 years old going up, we passed him. We made several stops and drank one full bottle of water on the way up. The signage for the trail was rather lacking. You basically followed the small trail and were continually scanning to make sure you were headed the right way.
Apparently there are 3 view points. We never did confirm which was viewpoint 1. We thought we had finally reached viewpoint 2 only to find after agreeing to hike slightly further that we had reached #2. The view was spectacular. We took pictures for an Italian guy who was also there and he took some of us.
As we were sitting resting the Dad and his 5 year old arrived. Can’t believe she managed to climb that trail! We took some photos of the two of them with their camera and had a bit of a chat. They are staying at the same resort as us. They’d drank all their water and he asked if we could lend him some money so when they got back down they could buy some water before hiking the last leg back to the resort. We said we had an extra bottle and he was happy to take that so they could have a drink while they worked their way down. Good thing we gave it to them rather than the money as once we hiked all the way back down the canteen was closed until 5:30. He actually bought us a replacement big bottle of water when he saw us at the resort later and said it had been a lifesaver having it. We managed fine with the water we had left for our hike back.
We drank almost 1.5 l of water on our return and then got changed and went for a swim to cool off. We are tired out from all the hiking. Gary’s iPhone said we did 8.1 km and climbed equivalent of 48 floors. Our feet feel like it too! We had to wash out our hiking clothes tonight as they were so sweaty. Thankfully we have a drying rack for our towels that we can easily put out on the deck and hang everything to dry overnight.
We should sleep good tonight, however we have new neighbours in our adjoining bungalow and they have one or two kids, one of which has been screaming up a storm and banging doors. Hopefully they quiet down and sleep through the night!