Tawau Hills National Park
Tawau Hills Park lies 24 km NW of Tawau and was gazetted to protect water catchment resources for Tawau Town and the Semporna Peninsula. At least 7 major rivers originate here. The Tawau River flows through the middle of the 27,972 ha park and forms many natural deep water pools and waterfalls, for example, the Table Waterfall.
A network of roads leads to the park, passing through agricultural estates. A newly completed sealed road connected the park from Tawau Town. Oil palm, rubber and cocoa fringe the park’s boundaries. The terrain is hilly with two prime elevations – Gunung Magdalena (1310 metres) and Gunung Lucia (1201 metres). Bombalai Hill (530 metres) is a major landmark.
The Park Headquarters comprises of an office and staff accommodation. There are chalets, hostels and restaurants operated by KOKTAS, the Sabah Parks staff cooperative. Nature trails lead to waterfalls and hotsprings.
This park is a home to macaques, redleaf monkeys, forest tortoise, giant squirrels, hombills and pheasants.
Occasionally, one may chance upon civet cats and clouded leopard. The park is a favourite picnic spot on weekends offering visitors the delights of nature-meandering streams, water falls, hot springs and jungle trails. Hostels are available at minimal charge. Visitors can also camp here.
This park is known locally as Taman Bukit Tawau, Table Waterfall and Gudang Empat.
courtesy of Sabah Parks
Hi Richard,
The park has been upgraded and it has a very nice scenic view,There are few chalet but the management has to put some effort to attract Tourist and the local population to make use of it.
Bryan Paul lai
I visited the park for a day and there is certainly a lot to see – starting with the world’s largest tropical rainforest tree. The paths are well marked and there are a number of covered shelters dotted around the place. Good walking shoes are required because there is a bit of mud and rock around. Leeches are inevitable – but that occurs in any rainforest.
There was an annoyance at the end of the day. I went for a final hike to the tree canopy walk – I have been on those things before and they are quite interesting. But in this case the stairway to the canopy walk was padlocked shut – meaning that I had wasted an hour of my time and picked up a few more leeches along the way for absolutely nothing. The park is well staffed, so how easy would it have been to put up a sign, or even tell people on arrival? Instead, it seems that the staff prefer to sit around sleeping rather than do some work – such as putting up a sign saying “Closed.”
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