The place

This destination has many fine attributes. State of the art type Waterfall, large pools with crystal clear water and visitors guaranteed of adventure when trekking to the various campsites. As the place is not suitable for farming and too far from any township, interference from human intrusion is fairly remote.

Access is now made easy with an all weather track to the parking lot. From then onwards, a properly laid paved track takes visitors to the first campsites, all within minutes.

The second part, if you decide to go further than the 1st campsite, then it's adventure. Making the progress to the other campsites, means trekking upstream. There are 2 ways, either walk along the Rock faces on the top edges of ravine or move into some trails in the forest. The first option is daunting and tougher. It means move up and down according to the profile of the rocky mountain slope and looking down into the Berkelah River, a steep ravine wall.

Choosing the trails in the forest is easier but most time the trails ahead on the thinly forested floor may look alike. In the early days, where traffic to Berkelah was low, the trails were not so obvious. Times and again groups went astray and  needed to be rescued. Time for trekking to the highest point which also happens to be the site of the Main Waterfalls is about an hour or slightly more.

Some says that they could make out 9 distinct waterfalls and same number of pools. Most pools were accessible by scaling down the steep rocky slopes while a couple not. Since there are so many options, most visitors would choose areas around the few popular pools as their stations for the trip. There are others who stay away from the pools and camp by a short stretch of river where the river bed is slightly level and river passing through mild rapids.

Camping is very safe as most sites are far from the banks on higher ground. Places with no water marks of severe flash floods. No not as a regular consequences after each rain fall. But look at the dried river bed of rocks and the dessert before reaching the Berkelah area. In Monsoon season, this place is really flooded.

What is recommended

I love this destination very much perhaps even nostalgic as in the early days, there were no trail to the Waterfalls. Access was by trekking the river from a point at the Highway 2. I find this place provided lots of challenges and opportunity for "explorations" When my pictures are loaded up, I tried to show the various spots that I would consider as Waterfall and Pools.

The destination was once promoted heavily by hoteliers in Kuantan with organized tour packages. For those coming from Kuala Lumpur, the driving and trekking times are quite substantial. it is not wise to visit this place as a day trip but please budget it as a camping outing.

Click here for more pictures of Berkelah