Kuantan Rock Turtle Mural • If you didn't Check In at Pantai Pelindung Location, you haven't been to Kuantan 🤭

Kuantan_Rock_Turtle_Mural_Pantai_Pelindung

Kuantan buddy Lawrence said our next stop was sea turtles. I have seen sea turtles many times before in East and West Malaysia, so I just went along without much expectations.

When we arrived at Sutravilla Apartment (7 km from Kuantan city centre), Lawrence said the turtles are around 15 minutes walk from here.

The mid day sun was beating down on us fiercely, and the air was pretty still that day.

The sandy beach on the way to the turtles was non descript, not very picturesque, had no shade from trees and hot sand kept getting inside my rubber shoes. I had to stop every 100 metres to empty the fine sand from inside my shoes.

Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the sea turtles which Lawrence was talking about.

It wasn't what I expected.

Oh.... It was a large turtle mural. Naughty Lawrence. (I didn't do any research on this before coming here. I prefer to take things as they come with no preconceptions when I travel.)

The sheer size of the rock turtle mural slowly dawned on me, sank in slowly (I was tired mah).

It was amazing!

The giant sea turtle mural is 20 metres long and 10 metres tall (but the rock formation itself is much larger).

The artwork was beautiful, capturing the majesty of the giant sea turtle blending with the rock formation creatively.

It's a marvellous, larger than life piece of art that captures the imagination of every beholder.

It surely will promote greater respect and consciousness of the need to preserve the precious sea turtles which are threatened with extinction.

Then, Lawrence said there's a smaller baby sea turtle nearby though he doesn't know exactly where it is.

It took us a while, some searching with a bit of climbing up and down to find the baby turtle.

The baby turtle is at the lower right side, behind the giant turtle, some 20 metres away.

This amazing mural was the brainchild of former Kuantan City Council mayor Datuk Hamdan Hussin. Datuk Hamdan is a frequent beach goer, and he noticed that the rock formation resembles a giant sea turtle.

So, he commissioned Team ProjectZeroSix to design and paint the giant sea turtle mural.

The mural was completed over five days in July 2024 by the talented Team Project ZeroSix led by Amir Faruk, 34 with members Kamal Idris, 33; Azri Azahar, 35 and Muhd Ikmal Manan, 29.

Source credit: New Straits Times

Truth be told, I didn't get to sleep the previous night before arriving in Kuantan by air. By the time we got here, it was the most punishing time of the mid day sun. The 15 minute walk was shadeless. And walking in the sun baked, hot soft sand, made 15 minutes seemed much longer.

But, seeing the majesty of the giant turtle rock, I kept repeating to kaki kaki that this was totally worth it and a must visit when you come to Kuantan.

Pro-Tip. The best way to get here is by personal transport. If you order Grab taxi, request your driver to wait for you while you visit the turtle rock mural. You have to negotiate a fee.

It would take 30 minutes walking both ways, and another 30 minutes sightseeing i.e. around an hour. Without this arrangement, it is very difficult to call a Grab car from this relatively remote location.