Amazing hikes on Atauro Island

The final episode of this podcast series covers the best hikes on Atauro Island, including...

Manucoco, 8.2km, 5-7 hrs, Hard

Vila to Makili Loop, 9km, 3-3.5 hrs, Moderate to Hard

Beloi to Adara, 10.3km, 3-4 hrs, Moderate to Hard

Bikeli to Akrema, 14.6km, 6 hrs, Easy

Atauro Circuit, 55km, 3-5 days, Moderate to Hard

Exploring Timor-Leste on Foot: 30 incredible hikes in one of the least visited countries in the world - https://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Timor-Leste-Foot-incredible-countries-ebook/dp/B0DNF9VK9Z

Hiking map - https://exploringtimor.com/discover-what-you-can-do-in-timor-leste/#hiking

Website - www.exploringtimor.com

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@exploringtimor

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@ExploringTimorLeste

Books - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D82D3TBJ

Transcript

Jonty: 0:06

Bondi. Welcome to exploring Tim Este, the podcast that talks about Southeast Asia's best kept travel secret. I'm your host Jte, and I'll share firsthand insights, expert interviews and practical travel tips. Whether you're a traveler, a cultural lover, or just curious about places rarely covered in the mainstream. You're in the right place. Let's explore two more. Less day.

0:31

Today's episode is about hiking on Aru Island. This is the area of Timor Lester, which I did the most hiking of, other than around Dili. That's because it's relatively easy to get to from Dili so you can catch the ferry or flyover, and there are lots of hiking opportunities around the island. I've visited the island I think nine times in my year in Timor, and so I managed to get to most places. There are not a lot of roads on at. So walking is the best way to explore this beautiful island. Hiking on Aru Island is similar to hiking elsewhere in Timor. It's hot, it's humid, it's steep, and you can easily get lost if you're not necessarily following the correct route. So if you check out the notes for this episode on the podcast, there are a series of links. The key one is on the hiking section of the exploring timor.com website, and there is a Google map on there where I've included the route for all the hikes I did on Aru Island. If you click on the route, it'll give you more information, photographs, and a link to an all trails GPS route. So you can use that to help navigate when you're exploring. A lot of these I found through trial and error, through getting lost. So I had that experience. You don't necessarily need to. So you can use those roots to help you find your way around this beautiful place. Let's start with the, probably the best known hike on the island, which is also the hardest hike on the island. And I wouldn't say necessarily it was my favorite, but I was glad that I did it. And this is the summit of Manna Coco. So Manco is the highest point on the island. It's 995 meters above sea level, and it involves quite a steep and tough climb to the summit. And then a probably even more challenging descent'cause it is quite slippery and easy to lose your grip. Now I highly recommend that you use a local guide to do this hike that can be organized through your accommodation. There a few reasons for this. One is it is a sacred area, and this is one of the requirements of the communities that a guide accompanies you on this hike. Second reason is safety. It's, even though I have marked out the GPS and there are some signs that U-S-A-I-D installed a few years ago, it is very easy to get lost on this hike. There are sections of shoulder height, grass to go through. So if you don't know where you're going, it's very easy to get lost. And there are quite large drop offs and exposure. I have heard multiple stories of people who have gone up by themselves. And had a very scary experience because there are some quite steep drop offs and areas of exposure and risk and it is easy to get lost. Relatively recently, a guy went up there by himself. He didn't tell anybody and he slipped and fell and was in a pretty difficult situation. He wasn't clear how he was get out of it. He took inspiration from some local goats. There a lot of goats on island and a goats a very good at. Going along very steep rock faces. He's Managed to follow the goats to an area where he could pull himself onto the path and then get down. But it was a pretty near miss and I've heard other people who've got lost and spent hours and hours up there. So strongly recommend a guide from a safety perspective. And also it is not that expensive and you're giving money back into the local community. At Island is one of the poorer places in two Molesto, which is a very poor country. Three good reasons to get a guide for doing this hike. But having said that is a very interesting hike. So particularly when you're getting towards the summit, it's an important bird area and you'll certainly hear the bird life. It's very lush rainforest towards the summit and the views from the summit, as you imagine are pretty impressive. So it is a good day hike. If you are up for the challenge and you go prepared with a guide and take lots and lots of water, like you're looking at 900 meters of a cent and then 900 meters of descent. So that's quite a decent effort in the heat. So that's Manco. So not my favorite, but it is quite an interesting hike to do. One which I'd probably recommend more to most people is the hike from Villa to McKee, which I did talk about briefly in my 10 Best Hikes in two more Less Day podcast a little while ago. This is a lot more straightforward. Forward. You can use a local guide, which is helpful and they can explain a little bit about what you're seeing and doing around villages, but you could probably also do it by yourself. Villa is the main town on Oo. You can get there by a tuk from Beloit, which is where most people stay. It takes about 20 minutes. I wouldn't recommend walking the road between Beloit and Villa'cause I've done that. A couple of times and it is very boring and flat and there's not a lot of interest and it's just a bit of a slog. It's much better to get a took, took down to villa. And from there it's a loop, so you can either start along the coast or finish along the coast. The coastal section is tidal, so you need to go there at low tide to bear that in mind when you're thinking which way around to do it. One section is along the coast, a little bit scrambling required. Nice scenery. There's a nice beach towards the villa end. And then you can come back on. The other part of the loop is the go inland and you go up and over. You go past the Lady Mary Cave and another big statue with Virgin Mary. And there are great views of the coast. And you'll go down to McKee, which is a beautiful coastal village which mainly survives on fishing. And there is. A statue of St. Peter, which is the patron saint of fishermen. And there's also a woman's collective there, which is a great place to pick up arts and handicrafts. So the village of McKee Loop, it's about 10 K. You're probably looking at half a day. That's a really good walk to do on Roo Island. Possibly the most popular walk to do in Roo though is from Belo across to the West coast. Primarily people will go to a Diara Mario's Place has got accommodation there, but I'd also recommend going to Cru, which is about another hour's walk, which is even more beautiful than a Dara. They're both beautiful places, but a Dara has a rocky beach and at Crew has a beautiful sandy beach, and there's a jockey's place there, which is a great place to stay. This is Navigationally, probably one of the easiest hikes on the island. From Beloit, if you go past Barry's place at the northern end of the beach and you take the road off to the left, that's the main road. It may not look like a main road. It's pretty rough. I wouldn't want to drive a vehicle over it'cause you'd probably break the vehicle. But from a hiking perspective, it's okay. And you basically just keep going up and up along that road and you hit. The saddle area and then come down onto the other side. They should pop out by the village of Arlo, which is quite a pleasant place to go for and explore. And then that's not far from the coast. You drop down onto the beach and then turn left and you can walk along to a dro and continue along to at Crew. If it is high Tide, there is a high tide route between a Dara and Atcr. but you wanna follow the GPS maps that I've provided?'cause I've tried it in the past and got lost, or I got a bit. SN could, trying to go along the coast at high tide. So yeah, you do need to try and find the inland track if that's the case. Now this is, say it's relatively straightforward. A lot of people do it. They maybe take their gear with them over to stay and Dara or at a crew, and then they can organize a boat back from their background to Belo rather than walking back. I would say it's not the most interesting walk on the island. Most of the way you're walking on a road. It does offer some very nice views, but very little shade, so you wanna be starting early. As with any hiking in Timor Lester, I'd always recommend carrying an umbrella and actually, particularly on Aro Island, because a number of the hikes are very limited shade. And when you're out in the sun for hours it's pretty exhausting. So a bit of shade from an umbrella is really beneficial, that's a relatively straightforward and popular hike to do. You're looking at probably. Three to four hours, depending if you go into a Dara or at Crew. Now another really nice walk, which is straightforward. It's on a road, but it's flat, so it's a bit easier to do than going over to the west coast as if you walk from bikini up to a crema. And back. So Bikini is north of Beloit. That's pretty much road walking all the way. It's not that exciting. There are infrequent um, I would say buses, but they're not, they're basically trucks and people sit on the back of the truck. It's the local kind of transport on the island, but you can get a truck from Beloit, which will take you up to bikini and then start walking from Bikini, and then from bikini going up to a crema. You're just heading along the coast. Line. It is a road, but it's more of a track in many places. There's no traffic and it's very quiet and there's a number of very attractive beaches along the way. You're in the sun the whole time, depending on what time of day you do it. So you need to be careful around sun protection. But when you get to a crema, that is a, one of the, there's many nice villages on. Island. But a cremo is one of the nicest, it's the only place really with a white sand beach. And it has a camping spot for those who are interesting in spending a bit more time up there. So that's a beautiful place to visit or spend the night and then just come back the way you can. If you look at my hiking map, there are a few hikes I did around from Beloit heading to villa and up into the hills. Those are pretty off the beach and track. Those are really for experienced hikers. The middle of the island has got basically a spine. So those heights go up to basically the spine of the island. You get a fantastic views from there and then head back down again to the coast. But the the tracks are not that obvious to, to follow as I found out a few times. Now the final hike on the island is to walk around the entire island. Now this is the first hike I actually did here. It was the first big hike I did in Timor-Leste. And it took five days. You could probably do it in three days. If you pushed yourself the five days allow me a bit more time to spend in the villages and with the local communities. And also, I did the hike in the middle of the wet season, which I would not recommend because it was torrential rain every afternoon. So it was useful for me to do the shorter days. So that I could get to accommodation before lunchtime, and then I could sit out the rain in the afternoons. And on this hike I stayed in homes stays. So pretty much all the villages around Aru, there will be homes stays available. The only real accommodation is in Beloit, and there is one place in Villa that you can also stay. So apart from that, you need to be in homes, stays these can be pretty basic. I've visited some interesting countries. I've been to Papua New Guinea. I've been to Ethiopia. And the home stays in Naro Island, were amongst the most basic that I've stayed anywhere. So again, one really for adventure travelers who are quite happy with hole in the ground toilets and a bucket shower and limited food options. You're basically be eating what the locals eat. So that's probably some rice and vegetables, but it was an amazing experience. You're visiting parts of. Tim Oreste where very few other people will visit, but it is a relatively straightforward thing to do. Now, I'd recommend organizing it through the. Tourism website so they can then connect you with a local guide. Now you probably could, I did meet somebody who'd managed to do it by themselves, but you do need to be quite confident around asking for directions and looking at route maps. It's not the most straightforward in sections, particularly around the northern end of the island. I did it with a local guide and that was a great experience and it really helped when I was staying at home stays'cause I had somebody could help translate'cause there's not a lot of English on the island. And again, you're giving money back to the local community. So I'd strongly recommend if you're interested in that kind of adventure, that you organize it through the um, at tourism website and they can hook you up with somebody appropriate. So that's giving you a bit of a flavor for the hiking you can do in Roo Island. If you check out the snorkeling and diving episode that talks about the underwater activities you can do in the island. And I've also got a standalone episode that talks about more land-based things that you can do, which don't involve hiking for hours around the island.

Jonty: 11:43

Thank you so much for listening to exploring Timor Less Day. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps more people discover the show. If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at exploring Timor lessDay@gmail.com. Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.