SECRET GARDEN OF PADAWAN
Padawan is a big limestone area located in the southern part of Kuching. In the limestone area, normally the water is very hard and crystal clear. However my friend, Francis discovered an acidic blackwater river somewhere near a small Bidayuh village called Bengoh in Padawan area when he was paddling his kayak in the upper Sarawak river few weeks ago. He invited me for an expedition. I was a bit excited to know there is an acidic blackwater in a limestone area, so I agreed to go with him. Later I found out that blackwater river is Sungai Embahn, a tributary of Sungai Sarawak Kiri. It is located in the southern part of Banjaran Bungo, no far from the place where I explored (northern part of Banjaran Bungo) one month ago.
Francis is an experienced kayaker. He also invited his friend, Ivy to join us. Ivy is another experienced kayaker from our hometown.
Dec 19th, 2004. We started our journey to Padawan. At Kota Padawan, a small town about 10 miles away from Kuching, my old schoolmate caught me taking the breakfast there. He was a bit surprised to see me and asked me, "You drive so far away to take your breakfast?" I did not tell him that I would go further 20 or 30 miles deep inside the jungle of Padawan. To most of the people here, driving to a distance of 10 miles is considering a long distance.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning. We picked the right day for this expedition as it is a bit hard to see such a clear day during the raining season.
Below: our exploration area.
What a beautiful dawn !
The limestone hills in Padawan are covered by mist.
The clear sky of Padawan.
Waterproof zip locked bag and backpack are essential items to keep our camera and valuable things dry.
When we reached Kampong Bengoh, we launched our kayak in a clearwater stream near the village. I learnt to paddle the sea kayak when I was 18 but this is my first time to paddle the kayak in the river. I was so excited and the scenery along the river is truly awesome! The villagers standing near the river were greeting us with their friendly smiles. A few minutes later, we met up with the bigger river. It is upper Sungai Sarawak Kiri. The water is a bit turbid and quiet. While paddling along the river bank we could hear the chirping sounds of the birds. It was very peaceful out there. Since the water current was not too strong, Francis took this opportunity to teach me how to paddle the kayak.
When we reached the conjunction of Sungai Semadang and Sungai Embahn, we noticed the color of the water has changed to tea-colored ! According to Francis and Ivy, the water is black-colored if there is not much rainfall in that area. It was very easy to paddle as the water was very calm and deep. When we're paddling up river, we met a few rapids. The water was extremely strong. Francis told me this is just the class 2 of rapid. We had to pull our kayak up the river. It was not an easy job. We took some rest at the bank after pulling for a few meters up the river. At the same time, I took my net out to try to catch some fish. The water was too fast, I could not catch anything.
The further we go, the faster the river flow. There are too many rapids in the up river! We spent too much time and energy to pull the kayak up the river and yet we only travelled less than 2 miles from the conjunction. Around 12pm, we finally given up to go further up and took our lunch in the river bank. We saw villagers walking on the trail near the riverbank. Ivy did the jungle trekking on that trail before told me that there are a few Kampong (villages) and some beautiful waterfalls in the upper part of Sungai Embahn. We decided to come back to explore this river by hiking on that jungle trail next year.
This is where we launched our kayaks.
Francis is up loading my fishing gear to his kayak.
Scenery at Sungai Sarawak Kiri.
Ivy is fighting with the strong current.
A damselfly emerged from the shell of the larvae.
A species of butterfly.
We never expected there are so many rapids in Sungai Embahn. It is very hard to paddle up in the class 2 of rapid, so we have to pull the kayak along the river bank.
The most exciting part finally came after we finished our lunch. We would fight the rapids and paddling all way down to the conjunction. Ivy advised me to let go of everything if our kayak capsized. Ivy leaded our way by paddling in front of us. The first attempt to paddle pass the first rapid was an easy job. It was fun and I felt like sitting on the roller coaster! Then, the second rapid looks a bit scary to me because this one was much bigger than the one we paddled pass just now. When we reached the rapid, our kayak was stuck in the middle of the rock. And within the split seconds, the water started to coming in on the left side of the kayak and we lost the balance and the kayak finally capsized. I was panicked because I never experienced this before. I was struggling in the freezing water and holding the paddle and kayak real tight and forgot what Ivy told me just now. I was stuck on a submerged log after being washed about a few meters away from the rapid and I could not think what should I do next. I was totally shocked!
Francis was not far away from me. He scared I would pull down by the strong current to the bottom of the river so he was watching me closely. I could not think of anything. My mind was totally blank. When I recovered from the shock, I realized my camera and all my valuable things were under the water. I could not care much of those things anymore because I got to think how to get out of there as soon as possible. Francis swam to me and asked me to let go of the paddle and kayak. Ivy was at the down river and waiting me to let go of those things so that she could pick them up later. It took me a few minutes to let go of everything. I took a deep breath and swam to the river bank. It was not that hard to swim to the bank as the life jacket was keeping me afloat and what I needed to do is just kicking the water and swim!
We took a rest at the shore and I was surprised that my camera was still dry inside that waterproof zip locked bag. What a relief!
After a while, we started to paddle our kayak and fought the rapids ahead of us. We were stuck again but this time the kayak did not capsize. Francis was trying to control of the kayak and let the tail facing towards the down river. We were pushing the rocks under us. After struggling hard to push our kayak away from the rocks, we finally got out of the rapid safely. It was a thrilling experience.
When we reached the conjunction, we just let the current push our kayak down. We were enjoying the scenery along the river. It was a fantastic journey although we failed to reach the waterheads of Banjaran Bungo. We will come back to conquer Banjaran Bungo again in the future!
I am very certain that the waterheads of Banjaran Bungo got acidic blackwater streams. I will definitely come back to search for new species of aquatic fauna and flora there in one fine day.
This is the exact spot where Francis and I fell into the river when the kayak capsized.
After the heavy downpour few days ago, the blackwater river is turned into a tea-colored river.
There are getting more and more rapids in front of us when we paddling and pulling the kayak to the up river. We finally stopped our journey here as there is no point to fight with the class 3 rapid in the upper part of this river.
Going back to where we started.
The water level is very high due to heavy downpour few days ago.
Going home. There are lots of limestone hills in Padawan. An ideal place for caving and rock climbing!
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