Timang Beach

At Timang a rock stack, Watu Panjang, stands about a hundred metres off the Gunungkidul cliffs, and the water round it holds spiny lobster, which is why local fishermen rigged a gantole - a wooden seat on ropes, hauled across the gap by hand from both ends - to reach it, crossing above open Indian Ocean swell breaking on the rocks below. That crossing, made for work, became a paid attraction: visitors ride the gondola for a fee, and a suspension footbridge was later built alongside as an alternative. The ropes are checked and the operation is run by the fishermen themselves, but it is a hand-hauled seat on a rope over breaking sea and it is exactly as exposed as it looks. The access track from the main road is rough enough that most people take an ojek.

What you actually see

• A hand-hauled rope gondola - fishermen's transport to the lobster rock, now ridden by visitors.
• A suspension footbridge - the later alternative across the same gap.
• Watu Panjang - the stack a hundred metres offshore with the surf around it.
• A rough access track - the reason most visitors arrive by ojek.

When to go

May to September; calmer seas. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The gondola is a rope-hauled seat over breaking ocean - the risk is real and not everyone should ride it. It closes in swell. The access track is rough and ojek fares are negotiated separately.

Nearby

The Gunungkidul beaches run east and west; Yogyakarta is north-west.