Tengkorong Waterfall is on the longer and more remote trail from Lambir Park HQ. Mixed dipterocarp forest dominate the trails all the way to the waterfall. The forest canopy here is dominated by Dipterocarpaceae tree family, some good examples of giant trees can be seen along this trail.
The Engkabang trees (genus Shorea of the Dipterocarpaceae family) had been fruiting in the forest for the past two months, their distinctive 5-wing fruits could be seen scattered on the forest floor at some of the places and especially on the Inoue trail.
A hiker in a previous trek not so long ago reminisced that in her childhood years when the Engkabang trees near her longhouse were fruiting, practically the whole community went into the forest to collect these seeds. The seeds were then soaked, dried and pounded to extract the oil which would coagulate into something like lard. According to her, when the Engkabang fat was added to steaming rice, it tasted better than chicken rice!
From the Pantu intersection to the Km 4 T-junction, the path goes up and down quite a bit as we traversed across a few ridges and the intervening valleys. Two streams were crossed, the first being Sungei Letik not long after we left the Pantu intersection, which dropped into Pantu Waterfall, and the second Sungei Lepoh at 2km further on. Water level at both streams was especially low that day as Miri had been experiencing an unusually dry spell for weeks, hence we were able to cross the streams without taking our shoes off.
At Km 4, the path forked, the right one led to Dinding Waterfall and Bukit Lambir, and the other one in the opposite direction joined Bakam trail which has 2 branches, namely Tengkorong trail and Pancur trail that ended up at Tengkorong and Pancur Waterfalls respectively.
Tengkorong Waterfall appeared to be even less visited than Dinding Waterfall as we trudged on the thick layer of crunchy leaf litters which made descent down the hills rather slippery. Fortunately the gradients of the hills here were gentler. Still, it took us a total of 3 hours to reach Tengkorong Waterfall where we spent about half an hour soaking up the peace and solitude of the place, and stocking up energy for the return trek.
Tengkorong Waterfall is a pretty waterfall. The stream Sungei Liam-Libau drops about 2 to 2.5m into a fairly large circular pool.
The emerald green pool is surrounded by lush vegetation and enclosed by semi-circle ochre-coloured sandstone wall which is draped with ferns and moss. The stream then continues on to Pancur Waterfall, another waterfall for us to checkout.
A taller than average walking palm.
The Tengkorong pool.
From Tengkorong to Pancur.
Write-up and photos by Sara Wong, MNS Miri.
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