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Having found out where we were from the hotel manager and Miss ‘Wee’, we continued on the coastal roads and finally found our way to the National Park. There was so much to see in the national park, but we had to restrict ourselves to only the best sites, that were (roughly) on route for us.
We first cycled to the visitor’s centre for the park, and had our lunch there by the sea. We then locked up our bikes, and scrambled up the 1km cliff trail around the headland to the next bay. A totally isolated beach not accessible by road, miles of white sand and almost no one on it!! Oh apart from 200 screaming 10 year old Thai scouts who were on a field trip!! Either that or a reenactment of Lord of the Flies. :p
Having climbed up from sea level over the cliffs, and back down to the beach on the other side, we had another stiff 430m climb to the Phraya Nakhon cave, up on the mountain. Half an hour later our hard efforts in the stifling humidity was rewarded with an amazing cavern, almost like a movie set, with giant ferns and trees reaching out to a small opening in the roof cavern, making us feel like ants!! The cavern is a Buddhist holy site as well, with a very well preserved 17th century Wat (temple) in one chamber of the cavern. We were the only people there, it was very spooky and made us feel like we were in the valley of the dinosaurs!
Back on the bikes we pedalled to another beach nearby which had a camping site. The place was deserted when we got there, making us wonder if it was abandoned?! Thankfully it wasn’t and we managed to set up our tent just before dark, and the campsite staff even cooked us an evening meal in their own kitchen. Before turning off all the lights, leaving the whole beach in pitch dark. With no artificial light pollution the stars above looked almost supernaturally bright, and all in the wrong places!! Not to mention so many of them… truly amazing.
Next day we backtracked to a nearby cave that we missed the day before. It was another huge cavern, pitch black (thankfully we had torches), and full of stalactites and stalagmites.
Back on the road we cycled to a nearby low-key tourist resort, Prachuap Khiri Khan. We found a nice new hotel that was surprisingly cheap, and we splashed out an extra 100B (about 1.50 GBP) for a seaview balcony!!
