blurpenguin

On our way back from Pantai Kemasik... we stopped by this mangrove park, just outside Cukai Town, Kemaman. We had earlier spied its location online and on our journey north, so we decided to stop by before journeying back to Kuantan.

It was kinda hot, but Thank God, the mangrove park was all shady...

It looks like after 9 years after launch... things are starting to fall apart... Malaysia is better known for their starting rather then their maintaining... plus as a Taman "Rekreasi" Bakau Tinggi... ALAS! NO such 'recreation' facilities were around... maybe a kids playarea under the scorching sun is all there is to the 'recreation' provided...



But overall the walk around the man-made walkway thru the mangrove swamp was still pleasant... but if you were hoping for an informative journey... no hope... it's a "look only" walk... nothing to tell you about the species,history or biological information of the plants and habitat, the wiki link (above) is much better in this department.

ahh... the next place we went is Pantai Kemasik... this was a Gem!

i had initially spied this beach on internet... looking at google satellite maps... and saw! hey this looks like a nice beach... after further checking some landmarks in www.wikimapia.org, read they had some interesing snacks too...

so thus... we came to this beautiful alcove.


there are 2 parts to this beach... one is a normal nice sandy beach fronting the sea... and another corner where... it was a sea-shell paradise...


i think it is the formation of rocks and the geography of the place that made the small beach-head surrounded by rocks into a shell haven... literally tons of sea-shells were all over the place and the crashing of the choppy waters on the rocks were great...

we really enjoyed our short time here... hannah had a field day collecting interesting shells and phoebe too gleefully played in the shells...


there were several stalls setup for snacks and drinks around... selling the usual fried bananas and lekor... lots of rubbish bins around encouraging u to keep the place clean too..

But, we headed back to the main road... a couple of hundred meters away to a rest area where we had "sotong celup tepung" aka. deep fried squids... YUMMY!, also some lekor and drinks... our lunch perse...


we started our journey home after the snacks... this was as far north as we could go this time, it was getting late...

Our next stop, after breakfast in Hai Peng, Cukai was Kijal Beach...

initially i had intended to try to find a beach "Pantai Kijal" along a village near Kijal Resort, prior to reaching Awana Kijal Resort... but it looked like a kampung... and no proper sign to a public beach was in sight plus Julie had reservations in just stopping and going to someones "backyard" beach... so after driving around... we headed to Awana Kijal Resort itself to see their beach...

I was surprised... Awana Kijal is Big!... how do they fill it up... surprisingly... it was kinda full too when we drove in the carpark... we later found out a company was having a function there or something.

I think it's still moonsoon season or something... the waves were big... and the red flag was up... so no swimming... unless u seek death. BUT ahh... Thank God for the breeze... super nice wind! Thus far... all our excursions are windy... Thank God!

As a resort beach... ok ok lah... but no one in sight... as the sun was up... and it was rather close lunch time then... so we helped ourselves and settled ourselves in one of the benches lining the beach... so hannah and phoebe could play in some sand under the shade... lots of casurina trees all around too...

We headed off after an hour...