A couple of months back, one of our astro-friends, Gavin, have made a couple of astro-trips up north to this place near Kluang, at an organic farm called the Kahang Eco Farm. With his relatively positive account and reviews of the site (and numerous recommendations!), I've personally made a trip down to this Farm with Kelvin, who was gracious enough to drive to the site and evaluate it for future astro-trips. We made a quick overnight expedition, setting off in the early evening from SIngapore and arriving (just in time) at Kahang before dusk. The journey from Tuas Checkpoint Link was a total of 157km to the site, and took about 2 hours. The drive up was relatively easy - exit at Ayer Hitam (from N-S Highway), and follow the signs leading up to Mersing, through Kluang. After passing Kluang town, about 40km in the direction of Mersing, one will encounter the little quiet town of Kahang, and the Farm is located just a further 6km, across the river bridge. From there, it is a further 200m along the same road where you will make a right turn into the Farm facility. Kelvin had to drive slowly once at the Farm as the road is gravel-based and runs about 500m before reaching a conducive site for setting up. The Farm itself seems to be an organic agricultural project, and at the same time, a good site for school adventure camps.
There was also a man-make mini-lake that was originally for rice cultivation, and this lake presents an excellent picturesque opportunity for photo-taking, such as mirrored sunsets on the lake, or even mirrored constellations (setting Orion) on the still waters. Sometimes, there is a light low-hanging mist on the surface of the lake too! The Farm has a couple of accommodation options. Although one cannot expect premium quality stays, the Farm has simple and decent room units for rental in 2D1N, or 3D2N packages. The cheapest form of accommodation would be to stay in the dormitories room. Each room has about 12 beds (double-deckered style), and appears to look clean, dry (no smell), and sleek. Toilet facilities are centrally based for the dormitories, and they appear to be decent and clean too. The other options include chalet stay (just a few units) and an interesting concept - the floating chalet, where a few units are built and floated on the lake! Access to these units are through wooden-chained planks with supporting ropes - quite an interesting novel way to make a start to romantic stay with your loved ones.
There is an obstacle course running through little islet patches dotted across the lake. There is also a rainforest walk that can be done in the night to see the rare glow-in-the-dark mushrooms and stargazing.
In terms of astronomy, although the night of the recee trip was filled with numerous passing clouds and high stratus, there were periods of good clarity, and one can immediately see that it is a magnitude-six dark sky site (as Gavin has mentioned). When we headed back to the Farm after a Chinese dinner at Kahang town, the sky was clear and we could see the entire Canis Major and Vela constellations very clearly, with full of background milky way stars! It was almost 3D-like, stars not twinkling much, and appeared sharp and crisp. I almost thought I was back in the Outback. The only light pollution domes were in the south and south-west that went up to about 20-degrees in elevation, and there were almost little or no light pollution in the north. The Big Dipper when up, was simply pristine! Just like a postcard, textbook perfect! The micro site that we chosen, was located near the Central Hall (where one could conduct astro talks here, they have chairs, tables, etc), since our system had to run on electricity. They had one long coil of extension cables, and added to Kelvin's coil, we managed to run the wire from the Hall all the way out to the grass field patches adjacent to the Hall and the dormitory units. From there, we had relatively unobstructed views of the night sky, surrounded with short coconut trees (i think!). We could see Orion and Gemini setting, and Hercules rising from the East. Eta Carinae was like a big flower, and the structure was evident naked eye despite the faint southern light glow. Throughout the night, there were several meteors. From this site, there were limited sodium lamp sources, and the only local light pollution sources were coming from the farm facilities, which we could have control over, and distant homesteads, but nothing that were disturbingly bright. In fact, the ambient surroundings were so dark, we decided to keep the dormitory room lights on. An added plus (probably for that night), the mosquitoes were only prevalent for a short time in the early evening. The entire night was mosquito-free, and the temperature went down to about 20-degrees Celcius, very much like air-conditioned camping. It was ideal for setting up your favorite safari-bed out on the grass, and do binocular gazing, with no irritating buzz and bites!
One thing though, the dew was heavy, everything was wet, and if one were to set up your telescopes for viewing and imaging, you had to make sure you have heat-packs or a comprehensive dew-heating system. The eyepiece would fog up, the finderscope too, and needless to say, any close-surface glass objectives as well.
All in all, it was a nice experience, and one cannot forget the kind of serenity having the lake there against the stars, and the quietness of the night with no mozzies!
Some photos of the quick-missioned Kahang Farm trip!
![[smilie=cute.gif]](./images/smilies/cute.gif "cute")
![[smilie=admire.gif]](./images/smilies/admire.gif "admire")
I think Sedili is much more expensive if we get a room but if we arrive in time for supper and order some teh tariks the boss may just let us use his land