Lore Lindu National Park

Listen first. Somewhere above you, in the high canopy, a bird is calling. The sound is hollow and heavy, like someone beating a wooden drum. The air is cool and damp, and it smells of wet leaves and moss. Mist hangs between the trunks, and the light comes down green and soft. Under your feet the trail is soft with fallen leaves. This is Lore Lindu, a wide mountain forest in the heart of Central Sulawesi.

Let us start with where you are. Sulawesi is the oddly shaped island in the middle of Indonesia. On a map it looks a little like an orchid, or a sprawling letter K. Lore Lindu covers a large block of its central highlands, south of the city of Palu. Here, steep ridges are covered in tropical rainforest. Lower down, the forest becomes montane forest, the cooler, mossier woodland that grows on high mountain slopes. Valleys, rivers and a large mountain lake lie between them.

The forest is only part of the story. This park is also a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. That means it is recognised as a place where people and nature are meant to live side by side. Villages sit along the edges of the park and in some of its valleys. Rice fields, coffee gardens and cacao trees meet the edge of the forest. So as you travel through, you move between wild forest and farmland, often within a few minutes.

Now for the first surprise. Sulawesi sits in a region that scientists call Wallacea. The name honours Alfred Russel Wallace, the nineteenth century naturalist who explored these islands. He noticed that animals to the west looked Asian, while animals to the east looked more Australian. Sulawesi sits between these two worlds, and it has been isolated for a very long time. As a result, many of its animals live nowhere else on Earth.

You may meet some of them here. The anoa is a small wild buffalo, about the size of a deer, and very shy. The babirusa is a wild pig with curved tusks that grow up through the top of its snout. Tonkean macaques, dark monkeys with pale cheeks, move through the trees in groups. And at dusk, tiny tarsiers wake up. They are small primates with huge round eyes, and they leap between branches to hunt insects.

That drum-like call you may have heard belongs to a hornbill. Sulawesi's hornbills are large, dark birds with heavy beaks, and their wings make a loud rushing sound in flight. Birdwatchers travel a long way to come here, because the park holds many species found only on Sulawesi. Many walk the forest trails around Lake Tambing, a small lake high in the park. Early morning is the best time, when the forest is loud and the mist is still lifting.

Further in lies Lake Lindu, the large lake that gives the park half its name. It sits in a high basin, surrounded by forested hills. Fishermen work the water in narrow boats, and the villages along the shore belong to the Lindu people, who have lived around the lake for generations. The water is calm and grey in the early light. In the afternoon, clouds often roll down the slopes and settle over the surface.

Now for the second surprise, and perhaps the strangest one. In the valleys of Bada, Besoa and Napu, on the edges of the park, there are great carved stones. Some are figures with large round heads, wide eyes and simple arms carved against the body. Others are huge stone vessels, deep and round, which locals call kalamba. Some still have heavy stone lids lying nearby. They stand in open fields and grassland, among the rice and the grazing buffalo.

Nobody knows for certain who made them, or exactly when. Archaeologists believe they are very old, possibly more than a thousand years, but dates remain uncertain and are still debated. Their purpose is also unclear. Some researchers think the stone vessels may have been used for burials. Local people tell their own stories about the figures. According to one popular tale, a famous statue in the Bada valley was once a man turned to stone. These are legends, but they are part of how the valleys remember the stones.

The human life around the park has its own texture. In the Kulawi area and other parts of Central Sulawesi, people have a long tradition of making cloth from tree bark. The inner bark is soaked and then beaten with wooden mallets until it becomes thin and soft. In the past, this bark cloth was used for clothing and ceremonies. Today a few makers still keep the craft alive, and you may hear the steady tapping of the mallets in a village.

Travel here takes patience. Roads wind through the mountains, and some sections are narrow or rough, especially after rain. Many visitors use local guides, who know the trails, the birds, and the families in each village. A guide can also explain local customs and help you ask permission before you enter sacred places. Rain can come at any time of year, so a waterproof layer is always useful, even on a bright morning.

The park also faces real pressures. Farming, logging and roads push against the edges of the forest, as they do across much of Indonesia. Conservation groups and local communities work together on protection, with mixed results. When you walk the trails with a local guide, stay at a village guesthouse or buy local crafts, you support people who have a reason to keep the forest standing. Small choices like these matter in a place like this.

Before you move on, stop for a moment. Look at the trunks around you, wrapped in moss and climbing plants. Notice how the light changes as clouds pass overhead. Listen again for the hornbill, the insects, perhaps the distant sound of a stream. These forests have stood in the middle of Sulawesi for a very long time. As you walk away, keep your eyes on the treetops. Something small and very rare might be watching you go.