Ujung Kulon National Park

Ujung Kulon occupies the far southwestern corner of Java, a low peninsula of rainforest, grazing lawns and mangrove creeks that is almost cut off by land. It is the only place where the Javan rhinoceros still lives in the wild, though the animals are shy, few in number and effectively never seen by visitors; the park's cameras do the watching. What people actually do here is stay on Peucang island, walk forest trails past long-tailed macaques and rusa deer, snorkel over reefs, and take a boat up the Cigenter river through mangroves. The World Heritage listing also takes in the Krakatau islands out in the Sunda Strait, which are visited on separate boat trips.

History

The Dutch-German botanist Franz Junghuhn introduced Ujung Kulon to the Western world on an expedition in 1846, but there are few written records of the area before the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, whose tsunami, reported as 15 metres high, wrecked many of the peninsula's settlements, which were never completely rebuilt, and left an average of 30 centimetres of ash; the forest recovered quickly. Conservation began under the Dutch East Indies: Panaitan island was made a nature reserve in 1921 and joined with Peucang as a wildlife sanctuary in 1937, the southern part of the Honje range was added in 1967 and the northern part in 1979, and the area became a World Heritage Site in 1991 and a national park in 1992, Indonesia's first proposed national park; in 2005 it became an ASEAN Heritage Park. The name means western end in Banten Sundanese (Wikipedia, Ujung Kulon National Park).

What's there

• Peucang island - the main base, with a beach, forest trails and tame rusa deer on the lawns.
• Cigenter river - a canoe or boat trip up a mangrove creek into the forest.
• The grazing lawns - open clearings where deer and banteng cattle come out in the early morning.
• The reefs - snorkelling off Peucang and Handeuleum in calm conditions.

When to go

April to September gives the calmest crossings; in the wet season the Sunda Strait gets rough and boats are cancelled. Visits are normally two or three days because of the travel time, and everything has to be arranged in advance through the park office, including permits, boats and the simple guesthouses on Peucang.

Practical notes

You will not see a rhino. Almost nobody does, and any operator suggesting otherwise is selling something. Getting here is a long, tiring drive from Jakarta followed by a boat, and the accommodation on Peucang is basic with unreliable power. Costs add up quickly because boat charter is shared between a group. Sandflies on the beaches are a real nuisance.

Nearby

Carita and Anyer beaches lie up the coast, with Krakatau offshore.

Key facts