Rantau Abang and Dungun, December 21

After breakfast, Derrick and I brought Joey to Dungun's market, sat by the river and visited a fishing village (chatted with a fisherman).  Rantau Abang beckoned us for a visit after we gave it a miss yesterday as Cherry needed to get back to Dungun.  So we took a drive there at 3pm, intending to visit the Turtle Sanctuary and buy some fresh water fish.  After asking people how to get to the Turtle Sanctuary, we got to the beach, crossing a wooden bridge over a river of brackish water.  The turtles were beautiful.  There were mature ones as well as baby turtles.  Took lots of photos.  Then we walked on the Rantau Abang beach which stretched for miles.  Collected more driftwood.  It was Kayley's first visit to Rantau Abang and to see turtles.

We all agreed (including Kayley) that Rantau Abang has about the best beach in Terengganu (and of course, Peninsula Malaysia).  We got our fresh water fish (now in my aquarium) and headed back to Dungun.  We stopped by Pantai Bidara, just beside Tanjung Jara Resort, for the boys to see a cave.

Finally we got to Dungun beach at 6.30 where we were the day before to see how the sea waves battled with water flowing out of the river.  Someone had left some logs and drift wood burning on the beach.  We decided to build the fire for the kids to enjoy a bonfire on the beach.  The fire looked so beautiful in the dark. We stayed on the beach by the fire until 8pm.  We got back to Cherry's place and she had cooked up a fantastic dinner for us.  Steamed kampung chicken, prawns, steamed fish - yummy.

After dinner and everyone showered, I packed up the luggage and cleared the car of sand, arranged the driftwood.  I was dead tired after that and retired at 11.

Kijal to Dungun, December 19

We left Awana at 11am to have a slow drive to Dungun.  I wanted to visit a Turtle Sanctuary at Pantai Ma' before getting into Paka from Kerteh.  It was a mistake, the path into the sanctuary was so bad that we could not proceed down the slope and we got stuck trying to reverse up.  The rear tires could not grip the gravel road.  I had to call Toyota Assist to get a tow truck from Dungun.  We waited an hour before the tow truck arrived.  Derrick and I walked out to the main road to wait for it to come, and it rained intermittently.

We were finally on the way to Dungun at 2.30.  What a relief!  We had late lunch, lekor and laksa Terengganu.  Then we went round and round looking for 76, Jalan Sri Dungun (David and Cherry's house).  We kept missing the turn and after calling David for final directions, found it in 2 minutes.

David was home to welcome us.  We unloaded the car while the boys watched Astro and signed in on Internet.  Cherry came home with Kayley and nice keropok lekor at 6.30pm.  We went out for dinner and the food took ages to come.  The boys were so hungry.  In a flash, dinner was over and we went back to Cherry's house.  We all slept late.