(Nomad: Day 1866),
Halmahera, North Maluku, Indonesia.
I arrived Halmahera Yesterday, and I tried to explore an obscure place, Sidangoli, from where I had not much information, no place to stay, the only place online that display a phone number was not accessible when trying to call. The only thing I knew was that there were paradise birds of Wallace nearby this place and this sparked my curiosity. However, after finding the only guesthouse in the village, I spend more time and effort trying to find a scooter for rental. Not many visitors come in this village. There was a road on the map with indication that this was a birding area. Arriving at this road, this was in fact muddy trail on which I couldn’t bring the scooter, so I continued by foot, trekking for few kilometers, crossing rivers, I saw an interesting pond with interesting sounds, I recorded there. The issue was that we still could hear traffic at times. Hopefully the traffic is very sparse on this countryside road and there can be period of times of 5 to 20 minutes without any car. No trace of Paradise birds there, so I walked deeper and deeper. But the night fell down. I decided to come back early in the morning, to record sunrise and try to go deeper searching for burung Bidari (bird of paradise), but still could not spot it. I asked locals forest guys, they told me there is no more bird, but it is still possible to see it by walking very very far away. Not sure what very far means, I just can’t fit one day trek in this day, I already spent half day walking. And I planned the same day moving to Sofifi so I can access the National Park the day after. I will have more occasion to potentially spot this bird in the National Park, not sure it was worth passing by Sidangoli. I recorded nice frogs’ pond however, and also quiet forests along with some jungle rain. Not bad.
I am eager to see/hear what I will find in the Lolobata National Park.
Connections in general are really bad here. And just writing this post and trying to uplad the photos took me few hours. So I might post only after when I find back better connections.
