Thursday 11 December – visiting Wallace’s house

Rowan had discovered that there is a house to be visited up a river where Wallace lived for a few weeks collecting specimens. ‘Wallace was a British naturalist, biologist and explorer famous for conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. Wallace’s paper on evolution of species was jointly published with work from Charles Darwin but when Darwin published his book “On the Origin of Species’’ it was his name that became famously associated with theories of evolution. It was during Wallace’s field research in Indonesia that he began to notice differences between the fauna in the east and the west of the archipelago; he discovered a divide which split Indonesia into two separate parts – this divide became known as the Wallace Line. Wallace discovered that the animal species found to the west of the line were all similar to, or derived from, species found on the Asian mainland whilst the species found to the east of the line were largely of Australian descent.

The Wallace line runs through Indonesia between Borneo and Sulawesi and down through the Lombok Strait which separates Bali and Lombok. Birds appear to mainly observe the line as many species do not fly over even narrow stretches of water and mammals are generally limited to either one side or the other. The invisible ‘Wallace Line’ is also noticeable from the geological landscape of the area particularly when looking at the continental shelf contours. The Wallace Line basically follows a deep-water channel between two continental shelves.’

We picked up Gary and Kim and went exploring, we found the river, after crossing some shallow water. We found a local family living at the river mouth who collecedt a payment for going up the river to Wallace’s house, they obviously maintain the property and the jetty. It is a big river, which came to an abrupt end, we found the jetty and clambered up a bank to the house. Just one little sign board tells you a little about the place. It was a tiny house on stilts made out of big leaves. Gosh those Victorian explorers were intrepid, dense jungle all around us and incredibly hot. It wasn’t a lot to see and rather sad that he was most probably collecting Bird of Paradise specimens, but amazing what he has contributed to science.

In the afternoon Claudette arrived in the anchorage, she has been in California where she got her new shroud built and brought back with her. She obviously had a good 4 weeks back in the States, she has fixed and done all her repairs in the marina in Sorong, mostly by herself which is pretty impressive. In the evening we all went to the Homestay for a very tasty supper, a bargain at £4.50 a head. There were a couple of Australian boats there too. Another yacht that keeps a distill on board, these guys just make gin and their own tonic water. He has given me his ultimate tonic water recipe, I really want to give it a go.