When Water Falls Perpetually, Come See the Beautiful Grojogan Sewu Karanganyar

By Akbar Hari Mukti,
Tribunjateng.com, Solo

STANDING some meters away, just right before the falling water in Grojogan Sewu, Tawangmangu, Karanganyar, Central Java, Indonesia, Sunday (20/8/2017), Nugraheni (33) was drowned into fascination.

In common Javanese language, ‘grojogan’ means waterfall, and ‘sewu’ is a thousand.

Coming from Solo, a neighbouring city, Nugraheni then took a selfie with her husband, Rifki Agung (35), with the waterfall as the background.

She was a little surprized when suddenly a long-tailed monkey jumped off in front of her.

It turned out to long for a pack of peanuts in her hand.

“I was a little surprized. I didn’t expect what’s coming. I thought he’s hungry, so I gave him some,” she said.

The natural view in the tourist park managed by Grojogan Sewu astonished her.

What she enjoyed the most is the rumbling sound of the falling water perpetually jumped down along the cliff.

Budi Cahyono, one of the management staffs of Grojogan Sewu nature park from Natural Resources Conservation Centre Central Java, said that the park belongs to conservation area.

And so, not only the naturalness of the waterfall and the air that the management takes care, but also plants.

Visitors will find various local trees like pine, gondang (Ficus variegata), kemlandingan gunung (Albizia montana), banyan, or puspa (Schima wallichi).

“You can find various fauna as well, most of them are long-tailed monkey, but we have squirrel and some kinds of bird. We don’t cage them. We want to breed them naturally,” he said.

Grojogan Sewu, he explained, heightens 900-100 masl, stands on 20 ha for tourist area, plus 64,3 ha for conservatory area.

The fall falls down a 81 meters cliff.

It was first open for public visitor on 1969.

The management affair is carried out by the medley of Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation, Central Java Natural Resources Conservation Centre, and PT. Duta Indonesia Djaya as holding company of License to Natural Resources Exploitation (IIPA) since 1969.

People call it ‘grojogan sewu’, he told, because they believe that the fall pours them thousand fortunes.

“Some say because the water discharge is uncountable, so there are thousands water drops,” he added.

The ticket price is Rp 15.000 each person for local visitor, and Rp 160.000 each person for foreign tourist.

Beside the waterfall, there are other facilities like flying fox, built since 2010, or kids waterboom, built since 2011.

Grojogan Sewu can be reached either from Solo, Central Java, about 45km away, passing through Karanganyar and Karangpandan.

Or from Madiun, East Java, about 75km to southwest, through Magetan and Sarangan. (*)

The article was originally published in Jateng Travel Guide magazine, Vol 6 2017, published by Tribun Jateng