2D1N Port Dickson Camping + Hiking Trip

Date: 9-10 September 2018

During our last 3D2N Port Dickson visit 2 weeks ago, I saw many people set up their tent to camp at Pantai Saujana. Since then I’ve always thinking about bringing the boys for a camping trip at Port Dickson.

Since there was a 4 days stretch of holiday (Agong’s birthday + Awal Muharam), I’ve decided to bring the kids to Port Dickson again for camping and hiking.

My good friend of mine from high school Han, also decided to join us as he hasn’t been to camping for quite some time.

Camp Site Consideration

I’ve done some searching on the internet for the best place for us to camp at and shortlisted 3 locations: Pantai Saujana, Pantai Sri Purnama and Blue Lagoon.

There was only 1 major consideration when selecting our camp site – toilet availability. During our last visit to Pantai Saujana, I remember the toilet operation hour was 7am – 7pm so this location is out of the list. Both Blue Lagoon and Pantai Sri Purnama have 24 hour operated toilet.

We went to both places to inspect and finally decided on Pantai Sri Purnama – reason being Blue Lagoon was simply too crowded with people and cars. Looking for a parking space was a big challenge.

Pantai Sri Purnama is a paid camp site, meaning that we had to pay to camp there. Don’t be fooled by the signboard which shows no camping allowed. The fee was RM6/adult and free for child (I’m not sure of the age range to be considered as child though). I only paid RM12 for 2 adults. The fee includes unlimited usage of the toilet.

There were also 2-3 sheltered site with power points that is RM40/site/night.

The toilet looks clean and well maintained.

Photography

Since I wanted to get myself more familiarize with my new GoPro camera, I’ve taken most of the photos and videos using my GoPro Hero 6 instead of my trusted Fujifilm X-T1 camera. For the first time, I’ve created a video clip of our vacation and you can view it at the end of this blog post.

PD Ostrich Show Farm

We have visited this place during our 3D2N Port Dickson trip 2 weeks ago. The boys said they missed the mice there so we paid another visit to this place again. You can refer to my earlier blog entry of this place here.

The entrance fee remained the same at RM15/adult and RM10/child. The animal feed is RM3/pack.

Balai Cerap Teluk Kemang / Teluk Kemang Obervatory

Again, this was a spot where we had visited 2 weeks ago during the night. This time, we came here during the day to observe the sun using the telescope.

The observatory opens daily – 3pm-5pm (sun gazing) and 10.30pm – 12am (moon and planetary observation). Entrance is free. We just had to get a visitor pass from the reception of Klana Beach Resort Port Dickson.

Unlike our previous visit where we were at the main observatory dome, sun gazing was done with a smaller telescope. We were lucky to have a clear sky and we were able to observe the solar flare of the sun. We were also the only group of people.

Camp Site: Pantai Sri Purnama

The place was crowded with families who come here for family outing. We managed to find an empty spot but it was a slope. Initially we thought we would just set up our tent, wait for people to leave and later move our tent to a flat ground. However, we were to lazy to move our tent after that.

Yuyu wanted to play at the beach while Ping decided to stay “clean”. Luckily Han was there to help me entertain Ping while I was looking after Yuyu.

For dinner, we had BBQ sausages and marshmallows which fortunately the kids enjoyed it. It was their first BBQ experience afterall. After dinner, Han wanted to set up a camp fire and the boys helped to picked up branches around our tent.

There were only 5-6 tents that stayed overnight. The beach was dark but the street light at the parking lot was on all night so it wasn’t too scary for the kids. We also had our rechargeable lamp on. During the low tide, the boys strolled along the beach for some exploration.

At around 10pm, we decided to head over to Balai Cerap Teluk Kemang / Teluk Kemang Obervatory again. It was only a 3 minutes drive from the camping site. The family of 10+ people who were having BBQ beside our tent was happily to look after our tent while we were gone.

The weather was good and we were able to see how the observatory dome opens. On that night planet Saturn was visible. However, the boys were already sleepy and there was a long line to see the planet through the telescope, we decided to just head back to the camp site without waiting in the line. The boys slept right after reaching our tent.

The next morning we had simple breakfast of pan fried sausages and hard boiled egg before we kept everything and headed for our next destination – hiking at Hutan Rekreasi Tanjung Tuan.

Some aeriel view of Pantai Sri Purnama:

Hutan Rekreasi Tanjung Tuan

Hutan Rekreasi Tanjung Tuan is only a few minuted drive from Blue Lagoon. We reached that area at around 9am and there were already many cars parked along the road. After we have parked our car, we headed towards the entrance of the reserved forest. There is an entrance fee of RM1/adult.

Our first mission was to head to the Cape Rachado to see the light house. From the entrance we walked for about 30 minutes on tar road to reach to the light house. The boys were a little exhausted and wanted ice cream before we continue.

We could not enter the light house and could only see it from outside the walls.

At the back of the light house, there is a jungle trail that leads to a beach. While we were still uncertain whether to proceed with the trail (because of the 2 boys), other hikers told us it is a very nice beach and worth the effort to go there. We decided to take the challenge and fortunately the boys were quite cooperative during the entire trail. We took about 25 minutes to descend to the beach from the light house. The ascending part took longer because the boys were tired while climbing the steps.

Overall, the entire hike was fun and the boys enjoyed it.

There are also a few trails in this reserved forest and maybe I would come here again with the boys for the challenge.

Video Highlight