Kubah National Park (Malay: Taman Negara Kubah) is a protected area in Sarawak, Malaysia. It is located in the Matang Range, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Kuching. The park covers 2,230 hectares (5,500 acres) and includes three large sandstone mountains visible from Kuching on clear days: Gunung Serapi, Gunung Selang, and Gunung Sendok. The park's main landscape is dipterocarp forest, with smaller areas of kerangas forest and scrub forest mixed throughout. This diverse environment supports many types of plants and animals, such as various palm trees, rare orchids and ferns, as well as bearded pigs, hornbills, squirrels, mouse deer, reptiles, and amphibians.
Geography
The Kubah National Park is located west of Kuching and is about forty minutes by local bus. It spans an area of 22 square kilometres (8.5 sq mi) and is part of the Matang Range. Alongside it is the Matang Family Park, which offers picnic and barbecuing areas near a river. The Matang Wildlife Centre is also nearby, where orangutans and other animals raised in captivity are trained to live in the wild again.
History
The park was established in 1989 because it has a wide variety of palm trees. The highest number of visitors occurred during the Visit Malaysia Year campaign in 1994, when more than 45,000 local visitors were recorded. In later years, the number of visitors dropped to less than 10,000 each year. Recently, Kubah has started to attract some foreign visitors, but their numbers are still small.
Flora and fauna
Kubah National Park is well known for its wide variety of palm trees, with 98 different species found within the park. This makes it one of the most diverse palm habitats in the world. The park was established mainly to protect these palms, but it also has a rich variety of other plant life. The area includes mixed dipterocarp and kerangas forests, which support many plant species, such as those in the Ficus genus. The nearby Matang Wildlife Centre, which is part of the park, provides care for orangutans and other animals that are being helped to return to the wild.
In addition to its many plant species, the park is home to several animal species. These include the Bornean narrow-mouthed frog (Microhyla borneensis), pill millipedes, the fairy pitta (Pitta nympha), and the rufous-winged fulvetta (Stachyris erythroptera rufa).
Recreation
Kubah National Park has a system of hiking trails that differ in length and difficulty. Gunung Serapi Road, which connects the park's main office to a tower on the top of Gunung Serapi, is where several trails begin. Cars are not allowed on this road, but people on foot can use it, and it also connects to trails such as the Rayu and Waterfall trails. Color-coded trails vary in length from the 255-meter Palmetum Trail to the 5-kilometre Summit Trail. Estimated walking times range from 30 minutes to over three hours.