This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 96, no 8, September 2024
Crossing Timor-Leste on foot
2024
Being the first group to attempt to cross Timor-Leste on foot in six years, what could possibly go wrong?! The biggest July storm in recent years didn’t help, but this was an incredible hike, up with the best I’ve done on five continents.
The Timor-Leste Coast2Coast hike was established in the 2010s by Timorese tour operator Eco Discovery for Australian operator No Roads. Over eight days you walk from the capital, Dili, across the highest (Mt Ramelau) and hardest (Mt Kablaki) mountains in the country, before reaching the south coast at Betano Beach. The trip last ran in 2018 for Australian operator Earth Trails, with an easier route.
Walking the dusty roads of Dili isn’t particularly exciting, so we started on the outskirts of the city near Fatisi. As would be the case for the next three days it was basically uphill, 1,000m a day. Timor-Leste grows some of the best coffee in the world and along the hike we saw plenty of coffee beans growing, being hand-picked and dried. Other sights included someone carrying a wardrobe on their back with a mattress on top and a sizable music speaker in hand, and an intrepid motorcyclist with five mattresses strapped to the back of their bike!
We spent the first night camping by Seloi Craic, a beautiful lagoon surrounded by rice fields, where we could buy fresh vegetables for dinner. We enjoyed varied scenery walking across Aileu before reaching the 2,369m Mt Maubo on the border between Ermera and Ainaro, marked by an impressively large concrete cross. It also gave us our first views of the stunning 2,986m Mt Ramelau.
The plan was to summit it the next day but an unusually large storm swept across Timor-Leste that night, sinking an Indonesian freighter in the Wetar Strait and flattening our campsite with torrential rain and wind at 2 a.m.!
Luckily we had a support vehicle with us and were able to get the crew and our things safely to nearby Hatu Builico, at 1,950m the highest settlement in the country. After a rough night we needed a day of rest and an opportunity to dry our things, as literally everything got soaked.
Thankfully the bad weather lifted and we went for an enjoyable exploration around Hatu Builico, home to traditional Timorese thatched buildings, local markets, a Portuguese colonial-era administrative building and an impressively large new church.
The weather was so good that we decided to head up Mt Ramelau that afternoon to watch the sunset from the highest point in the country. Most people summit at sunrise, starting to hike about 3 a.m., so for sunset we had the mountain to ourselves. The summit is topped with a statue of the Virgin Mary, gifted by Italy in 1997. About 25,000 people a year climb Mt Ramelau, 99% of whom are Timorese, with thousands summiting in March and October to commemorate the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Timor-Leste is one of the most Catholic countries in the world, second only to the Vatican. Summiting Mt Ramelau was the literal high point of the hike, but the next three days were probably even more scenic. Particularly the hike from Hatu Builico to Lepulau, which wasn’t in the original plan, but we had to adjust because of the bad weather. Thankfully there are so many trails that it is possible to get pretty much everywhere in Timor-Leste, largely avoiding roads. On the way we visited the astonishing Dokomali Falls, probably the best waterfall in the country.
On the penultimate day we used the support vehicle to make up distance, just walking the most scenic sections through Manufahi down to the south coast, including a refreshing natural swimming hole, photogenic landscapes, the huge Caraulun River and finally Betano Beach, where Australian troops landed (and were evacuated from) during WW2.
We finished the trip with possibly our hardest and scariest day, a day-walk towards the summit of Mt Kablaki. At 2,459m Mt Kablaki is the fourth highest mountain in Timor-Leste. It is covered with shoulder-high long grass and has rocky sections, and few paths. Our local guide made good use of his machete but a lot of bush-bashing with high exposure risk was still required. The views were phenomena though!
A huge thank you to our guide maun* Julio and the wonderful crew at Eco Discovery who made this adventure possible.
- In Teton language ‘maun’ means ‘brother’ and is how people refer to each other (‘mana’ for women).
- Party members
- Jonty Crane (scribe).