Shark Riv­er is lo­cat­ed in the North­ern Range be­tween the vil­lages of Matelot and Grand Riv­iere. It is part of the Matu­ra Na­tion­al Park's En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sen­si­tive Area (ESA) de­clared by the EMA in 2004. The park has an area of 9,000 hectares, which in­cludes the wa­ter­sheds of Rio Seco, Saly­bia, To­co and Matelot. The nat­ur­al veg­e­ta­tion of Mo­ra for­est pro­vides a wel­com­ing habi­tat to a va­ri­ety of wildlife in­clud­ing deer, ocelots, por­cu­pines, howler mon­keys and the crit­i­cal­ly-en­dan­gered pawi. Dur­ing high tide the back­lash of salt wa­ter at the riv­er's mouth used to al­low a va­ri­ety of ma­rine fish, in­clud­ing ba­by sharks, to safe­ly wan­der up­stream, giv­ing it the name Shark Riv­er.

On week­ends the area be­neath the bridge, with it's crys­tal clear pools is a pop­u­lar camp­ing des­ti­na­tion. Up­stream the riv­er is pris­tine and there are nu­mer­ous pools, gorges and wa­ter­falls to be dis­cov­ered. Once riv­er con­di­tions are favourable there is the op­tion to ex­plore be­yond the wa­ter­falls to see a stun­ning at­trac­tion-the riv­er has erod­ed the land­scape with such per­fec­tion to carve a ver­ti­cal wall. This nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non lo­cat­ed three miles up­stream is known to hik­ers as The Wall, which can on­ly be ac­cessed by climb­ing over gi­ant boul­ders and wa­ter­falls and is on­ly rec­om­mend­ed for ex­pe­ri­enced hik­ers.

On Sat­ur­day the Fit­ness Walk­ers will lead a team of hik­ers to ex­plore Shark Riv­er.

More in­fo

For de­tails con­tact Mario at 749-2956 or vis­it is­land­hik­ers.com

To view a video of Shark Riv­er and The Wall vis­it :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM­B­vrk­blkAE.