Waterfalls and Volcanoes at Gunungsriti

Gunungsriti, Java, Indonesia

It's been a really good, enjoyable couple of days. We left Jember and rode South West up into the hills at the Souuthern end of Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park. It's been 2 days now since we saw another Westerner and we certainly stand out everywhere we go.

You get used to the stares after a while. People with their jaws dropping down as if they have seen a ghost or an alien. But it only takes a smile and pretty much everyone we have passed gives us a big smile back, a wave and a shout of "hello". Whenever we stop for a quick break most people riding past are more than happy to see us. It feels nice.

The riding here is really hard work at times. We rode for about 5 hours from Red island, despite Google maps telling us that the journey should take about 3 hours. Everywhere in Java takes so much longer than should it should, usually due to the amount of traffic and the quality of the roads.

We left Jember along a busy main road. We both wear face masks now when riding along these kind of roads as the fumes from the other bikes and the big trucks is horrifying at times. I don't like these roads at all. It really is a case of your life in their hands most of the way, You can be tootling along quite happily when all of a sudden a huge truck will pull out onto the opposite side of the road to overtake. Hurtling towards you with it's lights flashing and horn sounding. You either get out of the way somehow or you get mowed down. At the same time your watching for pot holes and sections where the tarmac has fallen away at the side of the road. It certainly keeps you alert that's for sure.

A couple of hours of this and we swung South of the main road and on to beautiful quiet country roads, Zipping along with rice fields and small villages either side of us. I love riding on these kind of roads. As well as being a lot safer it's much more pleasant to be away from the polluted congested main roads and out into the Javanese countryside. This is where you get a lot more smiles and waves from the locals who are very much surprised to see you.

After an hour or so of lush green rice fields as our back drop we turned on to yet smaller more secluded roads. Bouncing our way through some mud tracks and pot holed villages before eventually hitting some good tarmac and spectacular twisting climbs up into the mountains.

It grew noticeably cooler, as you would expect at a higher altitude. Every so often through the trees we would glimpse a view back to the coast where we had came from many miles away.

Eventually the road leveled out a little and we snaked our way through tiny hillside villages before arriving at Gunungsriti, the village where we were going to stay. We had a pin on our map for the homestay but not surprisingly it was wrong. We were meandering off-road past scattered family homes with everyone giving us peculiar stares as to why we were there.

We turned back to the main road and back through the village before hanging a left near a market. As we bounced our way up a hill we hit a junction where a guy on the corner frantically pointed us up the turn off and towards an even higher climb up through a forest. I'm not sure who the guy was or where he was pointing us but we took his guidance anyway. Sure enough another ten minutes up the road we came to a house with a lady stood outside smiling and laughing and greeting us with a very cheery hello. We had somehow managed to find our homestay.

The family we were staying with were lovely. Really friendly people despite there being quite a language barrier. My Indonesian is getting a little better, I can get by with some real basics and there English is a similar level as well so we pieced things together the best we could. When we really struggled the mam surprisingly got her smart phone out and called upon Google translate. Google somehow finds it's way everywhere, even up into the remote mountains of Java!

Our room was very basic but more than comfortable enough. No shower or western toilet in this homestay. Just an Asian squatter for a toilet and a trough of water with a bucket to get washed in. Simple amenities did us just fine.

We were very grateful that we were invited down for dinner on the first night. They wouldn't take any money for it either and it was gratefully accepted. For the money we have paid you can't complain with getting both your breakfast and your dinner included.

We were told breakfast would be at 7 am sharp so after our dinner it was an early night to make sure we didn't sleep in and miss out.

The following morning with breakfast out of the way we sorted our day pack out for the waterfalls and sat and chilled with a coffee. As I looked out further up the hill I was gob smacked to see a ridiculously huge Volcano towering in the sky. Where the hell had that came from? We hadn't seen it at all when we arrived the previous day as it was hazy when we turned up, but the skies are a lot clearer on a morning before the heat builds up.

I hadn't even noticed any mountains or volcanoes on the map when we had looked at Gunungsriti. I knew it was on the edge of the Mt Bromo National Park but didn't think we were close to anything. I asked the family about it and was told it was Mt Semeru, the tallest mountain in all of Java! He said it was 10 Km from were we were and last went off in 2016. I have since checked up on it and the last major eruption was in 1967 but it has been going off ever since and still is! This beast is simmering away. I could see it venting gas half way up it.

I couldn't quite get my head around the fact it was 10 Km away. The photo I took doesn't do it justice. Given it's size it looked maybe a couple of kilometers away. But no this huge thing dominating the sky was 10 Km away in the distance. It's over 12,000 ft high, nearly a 3rd of the height of Everest! That's ridiculous when you think about it. What an unbelievable sight this was!

So slightly shell shocked from being so close to the big volcanic beastie we grabbed our bag and headed off waterfall hunting.

There are so many waterfalls in this area it was hard to decide which ones we should check out. Some sounded like ridiculously long treks and dangerous as well without a guide so we narrowed it down to around 4/5 potential ones and we would see where the day took us.

First up was Tumpak Sewu. The biggest and most well known in this area and it certainly didn't disappoint. It was an absolutely huge beast of a waterfall. 120 meters high and impressively wide. You get a great view from the top before you attempt the descent, it is absolutely stunning.

We decided to check out the climb down. Many people take a guide for these waterfalls but we decided to check it out ourselves. The warning signs at the start of the descent were ominous to say the least. Particularly the one about not attempting it if you suffer from acrophobia.....which I do!

The climb down was very steep. Some sections were loose, rickety bamboo bridges clinging to the side of the rock face with a vertical drop underneath. Others with rickety bamboo ladders, and sections of bamboo scaffolding with ropes for you to cling on to. We managed to get about half way down until we came across a section that crossed a smaller waterfall and rocks with a bar and rope to help you across. It was a steep section as well with a fast current and this is where we decided we wouldn't go any further. I'm not the greatest with heights and despite pushing myself as much as I could I mentally struggled at this point to push on any further down. Still it was good exercise all the same!

Next up was the very small beautiful Coban Ciblungan waterfall. I guess this one isn't as popular as we were the only people there for about an hour, which was nice. It was lovely to sit and relax there and to cool off in the shallow pool.

From Coban Ciblungan we headed off in search of Kabut Pelangi....and search we did! We found the entrance no problem. Parked our bike up and paid our 10k IDR entrance fee each and 5k parking fee. We were the only bike in the small car park as well so figured again that we were the only people visiting. We followed the signs which took us down a very steep, loose and slippy jungle trail towards a river bed, We must have trekked down for about an hour, slipped and tumbled over several times due to the steep loose trail and still didn't come across any waterfall. When we had read about this fall online it said it was about a 25 minute trek to get there. Having found nothing after an hour we figured we were either particularly slow or that we had misread the directions somehow. With our water running low and clouds coming in overhead the last thing we wanted was to be stranded down this narrow steep trail in the middle of nowhere with torrents of rain making the path back up impossible. So, reluctantly and slightly dis-heartened we turned back and trekked back up to the bike before the rain started.

It was still a great day out though despite missing out on getting to see Coban Ciblungan falls. It was a fun little adventure all the same.

Yet again the family were so king and shared their dinner with us. They really have been so nice to use. I think their daughter who is studying at University in Jakarta has helped get the homestay up and running. Despite them not having any internet there and at best a sporadic data connection via mobile the place is still listed on Booking.com of all places. The daughter manages that for them from Uni and then calls them to say when they have a booking. They really have been ever so friendly towards us and it's always a great experience to stay with local families in these kind of remote locations. It's good for us to experience and a welcome source of income for them.

But unfortunately it was time to move on. We have planned on riding much further West and as much as these kind of places draw us in and make us want more we are aware of our Visa and just how much ground we have to cover if we want to experience certain places in Java.

Having checked the map Yogya is just too far away to make it in a day. The maps tell us it is an 8 hour ride (that's with no breaks) and as we have learned we should add at least another 50% on top of that to accommodate for the traffic and road conditions. We did 12 hour rides in Vietnam a few years back but Java is a lot different to that. In Vietnam we always rolled in to some small village when we needed to and found some digs no problem. Java isn't like that. There are a lot less places for you to stay and you do need to plan your next destination a little.

Having sized things up and with Dani feeling a little off colour we decided to do a fairly short days ride and head North West to the city of Malang, bang in the centre, half way between the North coast of Java and the South. It's another city, even bigger than Jember but at least we know we will have another Homestay to stop at and it will break the distance up for us somewhat.