SRAMPANG WATERFALL
Srambang Waterfall, constitutes the pearl of tourism which is concealed in the forest of Lawu mountain. It is a pity that-a11 these year, the beauty of this placer is only enjoyed by the animals, trees and stones in the forest. Once in a while a collector of forest product comes to visit it, but then they leaves it to the silence of the forest. This place had always been like that till one sunset in early April 1995, a miraculous thing happened. In a place about 1.500 meter from Srambang Waterfall, a ditch with the width of 20 meters, the depth of 10 meters and the length of 2.000 meters was formed, because the layer of the earth under it cracked.
Since then it has invited thousands of people to come and see the “Kali Tiban” (a river coming from nowhere). Consequently; Srambang Waterfall, which is only 25 kilometers from Ngawi, begins to get visitors, too.
SRIGATI PILGRIMAGE COMPLEX
Srigati Pilgrimage Complex in the hinter land of Paron Sub-District, in the region of Ketonggo forest ( 15 kilometers from Ngawi ) is a contemplating place for believers. It happens that the people interested in the pilgrimage and contemplation not only come from Madiun and its surrounding, but also come from Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, Bandung and even from Singapore as well. For those who like to develop religious tourism, Srigati can be an alternative destination .
THE SOERJO MONUMENT REVEALS A TALE OF HEROISM
A recreation to a Perum Perhutani managed eco tourism resort is usually only provided with natural sceneries of mountains with its cool air, or beach sceneries with its configuration of producing and protected forests. But, that is not the case when you visit the Soerjo Monument eco tourism resort. The thing is that this eco tourism resort has a double function. Apart from being a recreation facility with its still natural surroundings, at the same time it commemorates the heroic history of the Indonesian people.
RM Soerjo was the Governor of East Java who died, tortured by the red PKI (communist) army. At that time, in November of 1948, President Soekarno had summoned all the governors of the Republic to meet in Yogyakarta (at that time Yogyakarta was the capital of the Republic of Indonesia). On his return trip to Surabaya, in the Dukuh Bago Kedungalar Village, his excellency was held up by PKI followers, and forced to enter the forest. Right in the middle of the Kedungalar Ngawi forest his excelency was brutally killed. On that spot where RM Soerjo Monument was built. Its location is also quite strategic, being in between the teak wood, and the mahogany wood forest along the Ngawi-Solo highway.
To be exact, in section 59, RPH Sidolayu, BKPH Kedungalar, KPH Ngawi or Sidolayu Village, Sub-District Kedungalar, Regency of Ngawi, East Java.
Like other natural tourist resort, this ecotourism resort also offers still natural panoramas set against the dense teak and mahogany forestry. The specialty being that at the edge of this ecotourism resort the Soerjo Monument has been erected to mark 23 species of rare plants which are protected by law, among others the sawo kecik, citradora, cendana, sonokeling, and others.
Those of you who like to keep birds, can, in front of the Soerjo Monument, buy a variety of birdsthat have been bred, like the Perkutut, Podang, Jalak, Bekisar, and Jungle fowls. To add to your collection of cages, here in front of the monument quite an assortmnet is available.
For those of you like to take a walk and enjoy the dense nature around, at this 25 hectares eco tourism resort, a footpath is available that encircles the forest. If you penetrate deeper into this eco tourism resort, you can even find a tower in section 54. From atop this 10 metres tall tower, you can enjoy the whole natural panorama of this eco tourism resort, including the Bengawan Solo river that winds like a snake.
For the comfort of its visitors, the management i.e. the Perum Perhutani KPH Ngawi has made available various facilities, among others, an information room, musholla, a pendopo to rest, a children’s play ground, handicrafts, showroom, public utilities, and plenty of parking area.
TAWUN RECREATION PARK
Tawun recreational park and swimming pool is located 7 kilometers in the east of Ngawi city. Apart from its beauty the park also provides man-made lake equipped with facilities as canoes, mini animal park, fishing arena, tortoise pond, and swimming pool.
In this very place, a traditional sacred ritual ceremony called “Keduk beji” is held once a year on Tuesday Kliwon (Javanese calendar) after successful harvest.
Tourism Potentials in Ngawi
Tourism attractions in Ngawi are varied, either those which are already popular or those which are still in the form of potential and need to be tackled more seriously. Among them include:
Tawun recreational park and swimming pool is located 7 kilometers in the east of Ngawi city. Apart from its beauty the park also provides man-made lake equipped with facilities as canoes, mini animal park, fishing arena, tortoise pond and swimming pool. In this very place, a traditional sacred ritual ceremony called “Keduk beji” is held once a year on Tuesday Kliwon (Javanese calendar) after successful harvest.
Recreational forest of “suryo” monument, 20 kilometers the west of Ngawi is situated at the side of the highway to Solo. Here is the site of the warning monument of the death of East Java first Governor, RM Soerjo, along with two other high officials of East Java who were killed by uncivilized Communist terrorists (PKI) in 1948.
Its location is in the midst of shady woods, an ideal resting place after along journey, where one can enjoy fresh young coconut sold by people coming from villages around the forest.
Trinil museum, 12 kilometers in the west of Ngawi is in same direction of Soerjo monument. It constitutes the complex of myth of ancient man fossil (prehistoric men fossil) (Pitecanthropus erectus) and also fossiy of other ancient life which has been raised to the world of science by archeologist Eugene Dubois since 1891.
In this very complex of myths there exist many kinds of facilities such as: the place to keep the fossils any its exposition, fossil laboratory, and others where all of them lie at the side of Solo river. After observing the museum collection and their scientific identifications, then we can sweep our eyes in the direction of the side of Solo river from the altitude, we can imagine the fragment of lives of the prehistoric people in the shade of the tropical forest at the side of Solo river, as though we have become apart of them.
The Lanang Spring is situated on the slope of Lawu mountain, in the midst of tea plantation and its factory, PT Candiloka. It lies in the region of Sine Sub-District, 40 kilometers from Ngawi, at the altitude of 1,500 meters above sea level. Cool air and the panorama of exclusive tea plantation offer visitors a special charm. If they drive along the asphalted road from the Sub-District of Sine, then they go through the region of Karanganyar Regency and drop by in Tawang Mangu then they go through the region of Magetan Regency and drop by in Sarangan. And then they enter the region of Ngawi hack, it means that they have actually travelled around Lawu mountain by way of the highest ring.
Cekok Mondol Spring in Kendal Sub-District, 30 kilometers from Ngawi is one of the convenient stops on the route of that ring road.
Srambang Waterfall, constitutes the pearl of tourism which is concealed in the forest of Lawu mountain. It is a pity that all these year, the beauty of this placer is only enjoyed by the animals, trees and stones in the forest. Once in a while a collector of forest product comes to visit it, but then they leaves it to the silence of the forest. This place had always been like that till one sunset in early April 1995, a miracolous thing happened. In a place about 1,500 meters from Srambang Waterfall, a ditch with the width of 20 meters, the depth of 10 meters and the length of 2,000 meters was formed, because the layer of the earth under it cracked.
Since then it has invited thousands of people to come and see the “Kali Tiban” (a river coming from nowhere). Consequently, Srambang Waterfall, which is only 25 kilometers from Ngawi, begins to get visitors, too.
Srigati Pilgrimage Complex in the hinter land of Paron Sub-District, in the region of Ketonggo forest (15 kilometer from Ngawi) is a contemplating place for believers. It happens that the people interested in the pilgrimage and contemplation not only come from Madiun and its surrounding, but also come from Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, Bandung, and even from Singapore as well. For those who like to develop religious tourism, Srigati can be an alternative destination.
The potentials of cultural attractions in Ngawi, besides offering the products of the art of its people which can be performed any time such as reog dance, orek-orek dance, gaplik art, kecetan, the art of puppet playing, wood carting, calligraphy and many others, it also offers a special and historical cycle of life of the people, for instance the cycle of life which has a center in sugar production, busy life during planting and harvest seasons, the cycle of life along Solo and Madiun rived during the dry season, etc.
TRINIL MUSEUM
Trinil museum, 12 kilometers in the west of Ngawi is in same direction of Soerjo monument It constitutes the complex of myth of ancient man fossil (prehistoric men fossil) (Pithecanthropus erectus) and also fossils of other ancient life which has been raised to the world of science by archeologist Eugene Dubois since 1891.
In this very complex of myths, there exist many kinds of facilities such as: the place to keep the fossils any its exposition, fossil laboratory, and others where all of them lie at the side of Solo river.
In Search of Java Man
In the year 1887 a young Dutchman named Eugene Dubois left the Netherlands on a ship bound for the East Indies. Born in 1858, Dubois had spent seven years studying medicine at the University of Amsterdam before taking up a teaching post there. His chief interest, however, was the evolution theory which had been proposed by Charles Darwin some years earlier. Convinced that the most likely places to find fossilized remnants of mankind’s early ancestors lay in tropical zones, Dubois quit his job at the university and joined the Dutch Colonial Army as a medical officer.
Arriving first in Sumatra, he was able to obtain financial support from the army and began excavating in a number of caves. Initial results, however, proved disappointing, since the fossils he discovered were too young to yield evidence of the ‘missing link’ for which he was searching. Then he heard news of some exciting discoveries being made by Van Rietschoten in the Wajak Mountains near Tulungagung in East Java. Moving from Sumatra, Dubois turned his attention to the region of Ngawi and in 1891 unearthed his first significant evidence, a skull cap and upper jaw molar, on the banks of Solo River at Trinil. He attributed the fossils to a type of ape which he named Anthropithecus. But eleven months later, in August 1892, he discovered a femur on the same lavel as the previous year’s finds, which appeared to prove that he creature had walked upright.
As a result, Dubois concluded that what he had found was an ‘upright walking ape man’, which he named pithecanthropus erectus”. The article which Dubois was to publish in 1894, claiming that pethecanthropus was a distant ancestor of modern man and had lived almost a million years ago, caused such an outcry among the scientific community as well as the religious orthodoxy that he ended up re-burying his discoveries under his own house, where they remained for the next thirty years.
Excavation at Trinil continued through the first decades of this century, but no further supporting evidence came to light. In 1931, however, the significance of Dubois initial discoveries became known when more skull fragments were found at Ngandong, which also lay on the Solo River. Similar fossils were uncovered at nearby Sangiran. In 1936 the remains of a man-like creature were found at Mojokerto and proved to be the earliest yet discovered; the estimated age was an incredible 1.9 million years. ‘Java Man’ could no longer be ignored.
Despite its historical significance, Trinil had nothing to offer interested visitors until the nineteen sixties, when a local farmer named Wirodiharjo built a small house near the original excavation site and began to build up a small collection of fossils, which have continued to be discovered annually by villagers who come to bathe in the river. Wirodiharjo’s efforts were rewarded in 1980 when his collection came to the attention of the government and a small museum was built, Wirodiharjo himself becoming honorary keeper.
Now (1991), exactly one hundred years since Eugene Dubois unearthed the fossil skull of pethecanthropus, a new museum has been constructed. On view are numerous fossilized animal remains, the proze exhibits being a three metre long mammoth’s tusk and an enormous pair of prehistoric buffalo horns. The museum also preserves some of Eugene Dubois original documents and photographs, as well as exact replicas of the original skull, molar and femur of pithecanthropus erectus.
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