Lore Lindu National Park

Lore Lindu covers around two thousand square kilometres in the mountains of Central Sulawesi and is both a biosphere reserve and an archaeological landscape. Ecologically it sits on Wallace's line, with the anoa - a dwarf buffalo - babirusa, tarsiers and a large number of birds found only on Sulawesi. Archaeologically, the Napu, Besoa and Bada valleys inside and around the park hold hundreds of megaliths: standing stone figures with large heads and rudimentary features, some over four metres high, along with kalamba, huge stone cisterns with lids, scattered in grassland with no securely established date, no known makers by name and no accepted explanation of purpose. Palindo, the largest figure at Bada, is the best known. The valleys are reached by rough roads and the sites are spread far apart.

What you actually see

• Megalithic stone figures - hundreds of them standing in valley grassland, undated.
• Kalamba cisterns - huge stone vessels with lids, purpose unresolved.
• Sulawesi endemics - anoa, babirusa, tarsiers and a long endemic bird list.
• Montane forest - the biosphere reserve above the valleys.

When to go

May to September. Three days.

Honest expectations

The roads into the valleys are rough and slow, and the megaliths are widely scattered - a guide and a vehicle are needed. Wildlife sightings are unreliable. Facilities are village homestays.

Nearby

Palu is north-west; Lake Poso and Tentena are south-east.