Thursday, June 8, 2017

On the Go in Manado 18 - Winding Down

I awoke in my luxurious room at the Hotel Formosa on the morning of my final full day in Manado ready for a busy day seeing all of the local sights I'd not yet visited. 

There on the waterfront was the only fish monument I had ever seen. It may be the only coelacanth statue in the world. In case you didn't know, the coelacanth is a rare order of fish once thought extinct for millions of years and rediscovered in the last century. I learned that one species of the living fossil lives around Sulawesi and was caught nearby Manado. 


My next stop was the North Sulawesi National Museum. It was a quick stop as the facility was closed. On a Saturday. 

 After a haircut... 
 My next stop was the Rumah Alam Nature Park, out on the Ring Road on the edges of Manado City. This place was unusual. Seemingly not quite finished yet, the attractions there weren't quite to my liking, although it looked like it would be a great place to bring a young family. The one thing that the credit my entrance ticket bought that did interest me was the driving range. I haven't hit a bucket of golfballs in years and so I went to range, looking for the attendant. None to be found. 

I had seek out staff to get my quota of swings, and the facility turned out to be laughable. There was one bag of rusty clubs from which you could borrow. There were no drivers in the bag, and even if there were, there were no tees off which to hit. Normally, a driving range has a rubber tee built into the mat. There were 8 or so stalls at the range; none of them had that rubber tee. So, I was left to hit off the astro-turf using a 5-iron. 

I got in a few good swings, including one that may have done some significant damage.
If you look closely at the picture above, you'll see and excavator out at about 70 yards doing some landscaping. I wasn't trying to hit it, but the ball just kept getting closer and closer to it. With one shot, I hit it squarely and it actually zipped through the open cab of the machine, missing the head of the operator by inches.  

Enjoy the video...

 

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