How I wish I had my Coreban Inflatable SUP with me. Ahead lies a stretch of shallow water on a remote river on the Indonesian island of Sumba and I’m on a 12ft epoxy SUP with the fins removed!
With my Coreban inflatable SUP, I’d be able to cruise down the river, taking on small rapids and shallow water with ease. But unfortunately to pass this section of shallow water and rapids, we have to jump off and gingerly walk overt the rocky river bottom steering our SUPs by hand.
Ah well, it’s a bit of an adventure and one that I know for sure has never been done before. We are exploring the Lamboya River for the very first time. It’s the tail end of the rainy season, so there’s still enough water in the river to paddle, but because the water is a muddy brown colour, we’ve taken the fins out because we’re not sure of the river depth.
But I know that next year we are coming back with our Coreban inflatables and going to do the river properly.
We’ve come to Sumba to surf, but after a week of solid swell, the waves are now small and because of low tide conditions during the day, we’ve been looking for something else to do.
So when Ernst Ludick, the manager at the world renowned eco resort of Nihiwatu suggested exploring the Lamboya River by SUP, who were we to say no. It would be fun to pioneer SUPing in Sumba, and who knows what we might see.
The Lamboya River is one of two major rivers in West Sumba, so we are going to set out from a spot up river and then paddle down to meet the ocean.
Sumba is one of the closest Indonesian islands to Australia, yet one that is rarely visited, despite being just a one hour flight from Bali. For those who are a little more adventurous, Sumba presents an island of unspoiled beauty and a distinctive megalithic tribal culture, as unique and vivid as any on earth.
The island was once forested with fine and aromatic sandalwood, but was largely stripped of this precious crop by Arab, Malay, Indian and Chinese traders long before the Portuguese and Dutch even thought about sailing to the East.
During World War Two, the Japanese built a road that stretches 100kms from Waikabubak in West Sumba, to Waingapu in East Sumba, but it takes nearly four hours to travel between the two. Often you’re stopping to give way to buffalo, chickens, pigs, horses and buses that are so overloaded, they can’t get up the steep hills!
Thankfully, the journey to our entry point on the Lamboya River will only take about 20 minutes.
On the way we pass herds of buffalo and lots of kids, the former on their way to wallow in river’s mudholes, the latter on their way to school.
As we crest the top of a hill we see the Lamboya River way below us and it looks like there’s plenty of water for our expedition.
The Lamboya River bisects a wide valley where rice is grown by irrigation and villagers make their living digging out sand and scree for buildings and road construction.
We soon find a likely entry point and very quickly a crowd of curious onlookers has gathered to see what we are doing.
Normally, the wet season would be well over in Sumba by now, but late rains have meant that the river is still running quite high.
There’s three of us on the expedition and we’re all keen to paddle the river for the very first time.
Some tourists do get to the Lamboya Valley, in particular to visit the hilltop village of Sodan, which overlooks the whole of the Lamboya River Valley.
Sodan Village is one of the dominant villages in the area and has been for many hundreds if not thousands of years. Visiting this village requires a slow walk up a 1500ft hill and when you get to the top all you can do is marvel at the construction of houses perched on this rocky hilltop and an eerie looking skull tree which stands in a central part of the village.
Stories of headhunting and tribal warfare abound up until the late 1980s. Claude Graves, who founded the Nihiwatu resort where we are staying, over 20 years ago and then spent the next nine years negotiation with many different tribes to lease the land, has some hair-raising tales of tribal and clan warfare, even as he was establishing and building the resort during the 1990s.
Thankfully, today we feel peaceful and relaxed and under no threat as we paddle down the river, in the shadow of Sodan Village.
We gently glide pass women doing their washing and children playing in the river who start yelling and waving as soon as they see us.
They chase us along the river bank but with the river current we soon leave them behind to laugh and talk amongst themselves about what they’ve seen.
As we round one bend in the river we see ahead of use the unmistakeable spires of Sumbanese houses with their alang alang grass roofs.
Dodging fallen coconut trees and submerged rocks, we pick up some of the faster moving currents.
We see white herons, goshawks, blue herons and what looks like a sea eagle gliding effortlessly overhead. We found out later it is a Brahminy kite – otherwise known as a Red-backed Sea Eagle!
Herds of buffalo are cooling off in waterholes by the riverbanks. They stare at us warily and we give them a wide berth, 700kilos (at least) of annoyed buffalo is no match for a paddle!
But the river has a few twists and turns left for us before we get to the tidal mud flats. We’ve probably only gone 500 metres in one stretch as the crow flies, but zig-zagged nearly two to three kilometres.
Finally up ahead we spot our driver, patiently waiting for us. Unfortunately, the last 50 metres involves carrying the boards and paddles through sticky tidal mud, but our reward is a well-earned swim in the ocean.
What an adventure - we’ve paddled probably 10 kilometres or more, passed villages and areas that have probably never seen a white tourist, let along one paddling a Stand Up Paddle Board.
I wonder what they’ll be talking about in their villages tonight?
By Lynda Lim – © 2011
Lynda is a keen SUP paddler and co-founder of the Peninsula Stand Up Paddle School, one of our Victorian distributors. Check out more of their expedition photos at www.facebook.com/psups or drop in to PSUPS headquarters and get a first hand account of their adventure. Check out our Coreban boards while you’re there.
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