Stinky River – The Balek Wildlife Sanctuary
Yesterday we took a break from diving with our friends from Belgium, Anita, Wouter and Anita’s dad, Jos. We drove out the road to Lae and the highlands until the pavement ran out, about fifty kliks out of Madang. Along the way, we stopped at a small park which I have not visited for about twenty years.
The Balek Wildlife Sanctuary is the home of what we call The Stinky River. It is a sulphur spring which bubbles out of a cave in the huge limestone escarpment along which the road runs to the Gol Gol River. Here is a shot of the cave entrance and the emerging stinky river:
If you find the smell of rotten eggs unbearable, you had better stay away. Hydrogen sulfide permeates the air. The colour of the emerging water, however, is quite startling. It is an unearthly blue colour. I’d guess that it’s loaded with copper compounds.
Here is the place, not far inside the cave, where the spring emerges:
The white stuff is some kind of algae or bacteria that grows on the rocks in long, hairlike strands. The small river that is formed by a confluence of springs contains what appear to me to be some variety of trout. How they manage to survive here is beyond me.
UPDATE: I think that I may have found the organism in the Balek springs. Thanks to my Facebook friend, Len Zell for the tip about sulfur-based metabolisms which shot me off in the right direction. Another mate, Justin Friend, also sent one of his science guys out there to have a look and he came back with the same conclusion – sulfur. I Googled around until I stumbled onto Thiothrix, which is a filamentous sulfur-oxidizing Gammaproteobacterium. It lives in sulfur springs and sewerage pipes, among other places. As soon as Pascal Michon returns from France, we’ll take a specimen over to Divine Word University and get it under a microscope. Hopefully, I’ll have images soon. Stay tuned.
The “wildlife” in Balek Wildlife Sanctuary needs to be taken with a grain of salt. There are many claims extant on the web for a variety of critters. The only wildlife that we saw, aside from a rather ferocious looking spider, were these two young Hornbills which are the “babies” of this nice old man. With wings clipped to prevent escape, They could fly short distances, but obviously preferred to stay close to their papa:
The Papuan Hornbill is a stunningly beautiful creature. The adults have a crest along the top of the beak:
The eyelashes amaze me. In adults they are very long and delicate. They are very inquisitive and often act like unruly children. There was once a resident Hornbill at a local hotel. Its favourite pastime was to harass the hotel guests. I you had a bag beside your lounge chair at the pool, the pesky bird would hop over (they hop on the ground in a most comical fashion) and remove all of the contents of the bag, often tossing items into the pool. It also thoroughly enjoyed biting toes. As long as you were careful not to allow it to get a toe into the back of its beak, where it could exert bone crunching strength, it was fun, in a creepy sort of way.
The garden is a bit sparse, but does include a magnificent display of Bird of Paradise plants:
There is also a huge pile of rocks in which lies the grave of Robinson Crusoe, so they claim. I find it amusing that they insist that this fictional character is buried here in our lovely Madang.
Other wildlife being scarce, we began to hunt. Wouter found this bizarre spider, about the size of a small coin:
The Balek Wildlife Sanctuary is a nice spot to visit while in Madang. There seemed to be some doubt as to the proper entrance fee. I don’t think that they get many visitors. Since there were four of us, I offered K5 each and that was deemed acceptable.
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- Guest Shooter – Jo Noble – Handy With a Camera If you're a photographer, you probably have few images of yourself. It's handy to have along a friend with a camera. A friend who knows how to do it properly!...
- Along Came a Spider Well, nothing has happened at all concerning moving Madang – Ples Bilong Mi to a new server. It turns out that I’m a complete incompetent. I did my best, but it’s not working. So, we’ll stay put for the time being until I can get somebody smarter to help me....
- Wrapping Up a Week of Diving It's been a long week of two dives a day, a bit much for my old bones. Still, it's the first time in years that I've hit the water on my back so many times....
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Jan, you did not mention the HUGE eels at Balek stinky river. They are HUGE, they are day-active and they can be feed by hand (!). I have lots of photographic evidence for that, as it is unheard of and unbelievable.
Thanks very much for that, Alex. I now vaguely remember their existence, but it did not creep back into my mind while I was there. Maybe we’ll go back out there and say, “Hey, you didn’t show us the eels!” before our guests leave. Please, send me a photo if you have a digital version and I’ll give you a “Guest Shot”.
I’m not so sure about the hand-feeding bit, though. You are possibly a braver man than I. I’m an IT guy, so I need all of my fingers.
Hi Jan,
Apparently some of the film of Robinson Crusoe was actually filmed there. Pierce Brosnan was in it and everything!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117496/
We should have a Crusoe night when we get back!
Rich
What a magical place that Balek Wildlife Sanctuary is!
Oh, man, you melted my heart with those young Hornbills! The ones I’ve seen before looked like fierce prehistoric hunting birds, but these lovelies are just gorgeous. And those eyelashes! I loved hearing about their personalities, making me want one even more!
Finally, that has got to be the most interesting spider I’ve seen in years….in fact, has you not identified it as a spider, I don’t think I would have seen it for what it is…it’s really bizarre….must be some sort of amazing camouflage, but what in the heck is it trying to look like? Something in the area, no doubt, but that’s just one amazing spider!
Thanks,
Steve
OK, I had time to look closer at the “white stuff” in the “stinky river” and I’d bet a hundred bucks it’s a mineral deposit, probably calcite or the like….not organic at all, as far as I can see….
Hey, Rich – hope to see you soon. I’m slobbering all over the place waiting for my new G11!
You have a great idea for a party there. I have a copy of the movie in German! It doesn’t stink nearly so much when you can’t understand the dialog.
Yes, it is a very interesting place. A friend commented that we failed to see the giant eels. We may go back today or tomorrow.
May people keep hornbills as pets here. Once they are bonded to you, you can leave their wings un-clipped and they will fly around raising hell all over town and return home several times each day for a rest. They love human contact, sometimes a little more that is tolerable, like a very needy dog. The first day that we arrived here we were walking around in the yard and had to hit the dirt when a big hornbill dived on us. They love to see people duck. Fortunately, their wings make a very loud roaring noise as they fly, so it’s easy to learn to duck when you hear the noise.
I admit counting legs on the spider. I’ve seen that species many times here, but I have never had time to research it to see what it is. Weird stuff like that is everywhere you look here. It’s a nature lovers fantasy land.
Well, on colouration alone, I’d agree. I should have gotten some better macro shots of it. We may go back there to see the eels, which I forgot about and they did not offer to show us.
It is definitely organic. Up close it has the appearance of a blue-green algae or possibly some kind of colonial bacteria. It looks hair-like and it waves around in the current. I’m going to get a sample and get it under the microscope. I should be able to at least determine if it’s algal or bacterial. The strangest thing about it is a lack of pigmentation reflective in the human visible spectrum. I can’t remember ever seeing any pure white algae.
I’d also like to get my hands on one of the fish so that I can take a stab at identifying it.
Although I can see how they could be a bother, the more you tell me about those hornbills, the more I want one as a friend!
Well, if it’s hair-like and waving in the waves, then there goes my calcite theory
(of course, you’d have known that too) but it sure does look like it from a distance, especially because the white stuff out of the water looks like weather calcite.
I’ve never heard of pure-white algae either….of course, some “white” is actually transparent, like polar bear hair….
Hey, if I’d seen that beastie, I don’t know if I’d even have thought of counting legs!….it’s so un-spider like…you do live in a marvelous place.
Yeah, hornbills are a laugh a minute.
I have a friend who is Dean of Medical Studies at Divine Word University. I’m going to get a specimen of the white stuff and put under a microscope. Maybe get pictures? I don’t know what kind of gear they have.
It’s actually quite common here. I’ve seen them many times. I wish that I had time to look it up.
[...] Here’s another fairly familiar bird, the Papuan Hornbill (Rhyticeros plicatus):You’ve seen them here before in my post about the Balek Wildlife Sanctuary. [...]
Your little yellow spider it’s a jewel… literally. It belongs to genus Gasteracantha. A very bizarre and beautiful type of araneid spiders. The word “gaster” means stomach or belly and “acantho” it’s a Greek word meaning Thorny.
Spiders from Gasteracantha genus are also named Jewel spiders and Spiny orb-weaver spiders.
I think this is a Gasteracantha fornicata, thus a bonus point, being the first australian spider that was described (1775) after been collected in one of the Captain Cook’s voyages. A fine species.
pvaldes, you are a cornucopia of information concerning species identification. Are you some kind of taxonomist or what? Maybe you just have a lot to time on your hands. I don’t, so I really appreciate you digging through my hundreds of posts and finding all the species that I could not or did not have time to identify. It’s not just an idle pursuit. I get thousands of hits a day on those old posts and the information which you put there in your comments will be useful for those who are making those hits through search engines.
I don’t know how to thank you except to keep on feeding you more images of some of the astounding variety of life which we enjoy here.
Thanks Jan. Yes, I’m a Zoologist and marine biologist. I’m interested in ecology of marine vertebrates, specially diets and parasites of fishes and also in taxonomy of marine life. I also like a lot Botany and plant taxonomy.
> Maybe you just have a lot to time on your hands
That’s true, he he, currently I have some free time extra, but I’m really used to identify living things so is not so difficult or particularly time consuming to me. I had see similar species from same genus before.
Thanks for that information, pvaldes. I can now see why you are so quick to come back with helpful IDs of some of the organisms which puzzle me. I appreciate you jumping in any time.