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**saralou** · #**3226** 21 Jun 2018

At the advise of the consul we want to get to the Jaco national park, which is on an island off the eastern tip of this island.

Today rain is predicted, but it looks fine. The clouds are welcome shade for us. We left the hostel at 830 and at 30 degrees. We took the sea road along the coast that meets with the main road to the east. This road is half unpaved, but has some stunning views.

Screen Shot 2018-05-30 at 15.17.04 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5004 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5005 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5069 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3227** 21 Jun 2018

We had been told that the entire 150 km to Baucau is under construction and it was true. The first section has very short intermittent sections of pavement with firm gravel between. It is also along the sea at times. The next is long stretches of very rocky bumpy dirt road. Luckily there is little traffic since it is very dusty.

FILE5074 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5076 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3228** 23 Jun 2018

The mountain section was a bit of a challenge with very poor and rough surface and often only 1 lane. Not too bad until you meet a bus or a truck. Then it was paved more often and at the sea again. We stopped in the first small village we can to and had some almost cold drinks.

Screen Shot 2018-05-30 at 15.14.23 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5105 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5109 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5114 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

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Timor-Leste-38 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-39 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3229** 23 Jun 2018

The road is not too bad until the next village where it is closed and you are diverted onto the village beach road for several km.

FILE5158 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5171 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5173 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-41 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3230** 23 Jun 2018

Just before Baucau the scenery changes again to agricultural with lots of rice fields and water buffalo. We rode along with the guy and the goat for quite a while. The drivers here are very courteous. The trucks and buses will pull over onto the dirt verge to let you pass on the 1 lane paved sections. There was one section where they had just covered the road with huge chunk of rock making for quite a rodeo ride. We did finally make it to Baucau at 1230 and had a pretty good lunch there.

Timor-Leste-42 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5191 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

DSC03338 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5203 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-40 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-43 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-44 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

IMG_2791 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3231** 23 Jun 2018

Leaving town the road was paved and the view panoramic. We even got up to 70 km/h for small stretches. There is the odd road defect to keep you alert.

FILE5214 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5221 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5222 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

On the way you pass thru a number of small and mostly tidy villages. The road continues along the sea until Lautem where it veers inland.

Screen Shot 2018-05-30 at 15.13.37 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5226 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

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FILE5259 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3232** 24 Jun 2018

We even had a few sprinkles of rain, which were nice and cooling. We have also had cooler temperatures as we have been at higher elevation and it has been cloudy. About 3 km before Fuiloro there is a modern gas station in the middle of nowhere. The Bacua - Lospalos road turns off at Fuiloro and is paved, but very patchy. There are still fairly frequent small villages with lots of smiling kids waving.

FILE5276 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5278 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5283 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

At Mahera we stopped to read the map on the sign. The road is good for a while from a few km after Tatuala and it was not!

FILE5403 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3233** 24 Jun 2018

At Tutuala the “ road” hair pins right onto a rough dirt/gravel track and then into a road construction zone with initially a good surface and then to a very rough a 4WD track/for the last 3 km of the 8 km.

Screen Shot 2018-05-30 at 15.09.57 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

There are very rough steep sections, rutted soft dirt and one 500 m section with deep thick sticky mud also in ruts followed by a muddy very steep descent. And that was the “good part". It gets worse from here and is very steep down hill, narrow, and very loose. No time to take the hands off the bars for photos! There was some praying and butt clenching, but no one came off (while I did get bucked up off my seat and my rear wheel was well off the ground, but managed to hang on in a very rocky steep decent)! WE even had to stop part way down on a flat spot just to catch a break. We all made it intact to the last km, which is a nice gravel lane way!

FILE5420 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

DSC0E3353 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE5429 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3234** 24 Jun 2018

We finally arrived at Nino Konis Santana National Park at 530 pm. What you get when you arrive it a pristine beach and the national park. There is one place here with small cabanas. squat toilet, and a bucket shower. They do have power and OV has 3G with his provider! We immediately stripped to our undies and went in for a swim in the glorious warm water as the sun was setting.

They did prepare dinner for us that was just edible, but only 5 dollars for rice, veg, and fish (some sort of fatty mackerel like fish). Orvar just became a vegetarian. We opened all the windows and took down the mosquito net for max air flow (no bugs), but with the heat and the very loud waves crashing we were all up late.

Timor-Leste-50 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-46 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-51 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-64 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-47 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3235** 24 Jun 2018

We did wake at 3 am and needed a blanket as we were now freezing. I was up several times in the night to see if the predicted rain materialized. We were pretty worried about the 500 m of steep deep mud if it poured all night. The bike cover were totally dry in the morning. We decided to skip the offer of breakfast and ate a can of peaches from our ER rations and Orvar’s left over “Rose cream” cookies.

Setting out today we backtracked 1 km on the nice gravel track with the grass center and then hit the steep loose rises. The worst part are the large rock chunks. After 1 km of this we ran into a dump truck that was the source of said chunks. Once past him we rode another km of this to then hit the first of the mud sections.

Frame-24-05-2018-19-39-57 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-52 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Frame-24-05-2018-19-40-38 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

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Timor-Leste-56 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Frame-24-05-2018-19-40-44 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3236** 24 Jun 2018

At the first it is a steep gravel approach and then a long moderately steep wide rise of thick mud rutted by the trucks. Phew made it thru this… Next the long steep mud hill with the 100 meters of rutted muck at the top. Then we are home free.

DSC03371 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

DSC03375 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-65 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3237** 24 Jun 2018

The route now is good gravel to the village at Tutala and the hairpin turn towards the “main road”.

Frame-24-05-2018-19-49-14 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

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**saralou** · #**3238** 24 Jun 2018

Here the road is pretty good again and we stopped at the gas station just past Mahera for some snacks. We had not left until 945 and it is now 11 and we have gone 38 km. The road gets better and better though there are a lot of rough patches especially in the villages until we got to the turn off to the main road at Fuiloro.

Frame-24-05-2018-19-55-27 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

DSC03390 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Frame-24-05-2018-19-56-49 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Frame-24-05-2018-19-57-33 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Frame-24-05-2018-20-01-08 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-69 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-70 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-73 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-76 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-77 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #**3239** 24 Jun 2018

We arrived to Baucau at 230 and went back to the same place (Victoria) we had the great lunch and they also have rooms. We did check out a few others, but they were not nice or very nice (70 USD per person). Here we had a good room hot water air con and breakfast for 40$ all 3 of us. It was a bit hot in the room and we had a few annoying mosquitoes and then the roosters started at 6am.

Timor-Leste-71 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Timor-Leste-72 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

IMG_2794 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr