02-May-2004 -- Confluence 7S 112 E, West of Surabaya, East Java

After our success on Saturday visiting 7°S 113°E, we got off to a bright and early start Sunday morning to head west of Surabaya in search of our next point. We set off on the toll road, and made some good time and got on some small roads near the confluence by 09:00 am. Our driver still did not have a clue what we were doing. Donny the driver usually takes tourists up to Mount Bromo, a spectacular volcanic caldera south of Surabaya. He still could not fathom what two guys were doing heading off to obscure places which had no tourist attractions.

Again, we had only very basic maps and had to rely on dead reckoning and hope that there would be a road which took us near the confluence point.

As we got near the area, we could see a lot of big ponds, inaccessible bush, and some quite spectacular limestone cliffs. This confluence looked like it could be a tough one to reach.

We found a small road (picture) which led between the cliffs up about 350 meters onto the top of an ancient reef. The scenery was beautiful with terraced gardens and teak forests. The small road we had chosen happened to be the correct one and it lead us very near the confluence – approximately 1 Km distance.

There were some cliffs in the area (photo) and we were a bit concerned that we might have to do some serious hiking if the point lay around these cliffs. It was our luck day, as the walk to the confluence was quite easy through some small hamlets, gardens and forests, and past a couple cows.

The confluence lay right near corn gardens and papaya trees. We stopped and took the required shots. The GPS receiver was a bit touchy and we never managed to get a photo of all zeros but got very close (photo).

The people around here seem to be very hard workers and were tilling their fields in very traditional way with cows and primitive plows. On the way back home just north of the confluence we found some guys mining limestone bricks (photo). This looked like really hard work.

Along the way back to Surabaya, we had a great seafood lunch crab, fish, squid, and some fermented coconut juice, also stopped at the biggest Chinese temple in Java. Then back to Surabaya by 15:00, plenty of time to look through an old 1952 Russian Submarine that had been sold to the Indonesian Navy (photo), and celebrate with another great dinner.

We flew back to Balikpapan on Monday.