Bako National Park

After spending a few days relaxing, shopping, and catching up on emails I decided I needed some adventure again. To fill this desire I headed out with two others from my group to Bako National Park, a trip that took just 1hr by bus and 1/2 by boat. Once in Bako we trekked to Kecil beach and the place was absolutely beautiful. Deep Blue water, hardly anyone about, and some great places to jump off the rocks/ cliffs. I actually climbed up one cliff that, once on top, had the local boat drivers yelling at me "you first man ever on top!". This thought had me feeling pretty good about myself and gave me a lot of extra motivation to make the jump off this cliff. The jump itself was loads of fun but I did land hard and bruise my tail bone, making sitting a painful experience for the next few days. Still as I swam to shore the boat drivers called me over and asked me how i got on top of the cliff. I Climbed I told them, and it wasn't overly difficult. Again they told me I was the first bloke up there and when I was walking off one guy yelled out and asked me my name. I told him, and pointing at the cliff he said "Kearrin rock". So i'm famous at Baku now, hahaha.
The rest of the day was spent lazing on the beach and taking photos before heading back for our afternoon boat and coming across some beautiful Silver Langur mothers with their newborn babies. I would recommend Baku park to everyone who has the time when in Kuching as Kecil beach is just so beautiful. Arriving back late afternoon we all felt it had been a fantastic day.

Semengohh Orang utan Rehabilitation Centre

Not to far out of the beautiful Kuching is Semengohh orang utan rehabilitation centre, a centre that in my opinion is much better the Sepilok. While at Semengohh I got to see Ritchie, the dominant male and he is MASSIVE. All the park rangers are quick to move everyone along if Ritchie comes your way, not that you need them to tell you to move! And I also got to sit about a metre away from a 38yr old wild orang utan. If you are on a limited time stretch in Borneo go to Semengohh over Sepilok. Anyway, thats all the writing i'm going to put on this post, I will let the photos show you how cool this place was!

Ordering

Just a quick note to say sorry about the posts on Borneo being all out of order. Internet connectivity was very limited and often very slow so posting ended up a bit chaotic..
(The above photo is from seaside travellers inn, kota kinabalu).

Mulu National Park

Borneo's Mulu national park is possibly the most beautiful national park I have ever seen. To get to Mulu we left from Miri and traveled by express boat up river for about 9hrs. Along the way we saw crocodiles and spoke with locals heading back to their original home village because a fire had destroyed their parents homes and their families were now homeless and were lacking the necessary wealth to rebuild. We also passed huge logging vessels. After the express boat we boarded boats that were about 3feet wide and had a hull of about 6 inches. In these tiny vessels we traveled up the clear-water river system for 1 1/2 hours in a thunderstorm with rain so heavy we were sometimes forced to close our eyes!
The next day we again traveled up the beautiful clear-water river system by boat before trekking 8.9km through the rainforest to reach camp 5, our base camp for the next days climb of the Pinnacles. At camp 5 I had an afternoon swim in the river and laid about reading and writing before an early night.
The next morning we headed of at 6:30 to start climbing the pinnacles. The climb had us soaked in sweat, was very slow on the way down, but was also relatively easy. After navigating the various ladders and ropes to reach the top and come back down again, I returned to camp 5 about 12 o'clock. Again the afternoon was spent swimming in the river, relaxing, and watching lizards and insects run about.
The following morning we re-trekked the 8.9km back out of camp 5 to meet our boats. After arriving 20 minutes early for our pick up one of the girls and I decided we would float downriver and meet the boats on the way. The water was crystal clear and the perfect temperature for the humid rainforest. In the afternoon we headed out to do the canopy walk and then onwards to see Lang and deer cave. The canopy walk was good fun (though overpriced), but the winner of the day by far was the caves. Lang cave is quite small but has some amazing formations, while the size of deer cave simply can't be put into words of photographs. it is MASSIVE. It is also home to 3 million bats and smells terribly of bat droppings, but what an amazing thing to see. After exploring deer cave we waited outside for the bats to emerge for their night time hunt but they decided not to come up. this was both very disappointing and very uncommon...
The next morning we flew out of Mulu and from the plane windows the rainforest went as far as the eye can see. Mulu is a place I feel very privileged to have seen..

Turtle Island

To get to Turtle Island we took a fast boat from Sandakan, and the journey out was quite smooth. Pulling into the Island you could see that this was your typical tropical paradise but turtle island's real beauty actually lies beneath its waters. As soon as we had checked our bags in I grabbed a snorkel and headed off to the beach. Swimming out past the roped off area I saw lots of beautiful coral and sponges, loads of fish (including clown fish), and various clams and coral worms. My day was basically spent swimming and exploring the beautiful reef. In the late afternoon I headed out with three others from my group to snorkel to the drop off point where the reef became open water. The fish out there were incredible.
At about 9:30pm it was time to go and watch the sea turtle come onto the beach and lay its eggs. As everyone on the island (about 30 people)walked to the one turtle we were allowed to watch lay we passed about 10 other turtles on the beach. Watching the turtles coming up the beach was an amazing experience but actually watching the turtle lay felt intrusive and unnessecary. I think the program needs to be changed so that the mother turtles are not interuppted while laying. Simply to watch the turtles crawl up the beach from the distance would have been a far more special experience. Watching the babies released into the ocean was by far the best part of the experience however. They are so tiny and you can only wish them luck on a life that is going to be a hard one to survive!

Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Cente

After witnessing Borneo's amazing wildlife on turtle island it was time to move on again and witness another of the small islands great ecological treasures, the orangutan. At Sepilok orangutan rehabilitation centre injured or orphaned orangutans are collected from the wild and brought in for nuturing until they are ready to be returned to the wild. From the feeding deck viewing platform we were able to witness about five orangutans and several other monkeys feeding and swinging about. Although it was incredibly hot on the platform it was a really great experience to see these rare creatures in their natural environment.
After the rehabilitation centre I headed to the Rainforest Discovery Centre (RDC) to learn some more about the local rainforests and see a lot of the plants the forests have to offer. the RDC was a very interesting place but the heat drove me away before I had managed to explore all of its grounds. In the afternoon some of our group headed off to a proboscious monkey centre where they could get really close to these animals but this trip was a little to expeninsive for me. Instead, I spent the afternoon relaxing at the Sepilok B&B and using their wireless internet to catch up on some emails and blog posting.

Kinabatangan

My first jungle experience in Borneo was to be in the Kinabatangan region where I visited a small environmental and cultural conservation project run by a group of local people called MESCOT. MESCOT'S objective is to provide local people with an initiative of their own which encourages cultural preservation and prevents palm oil plantations from destroying local ecosystems. With the MESCOT organisation we travelled up Kinabatangan river where we saw crocodiles, hornbills, macac monkeys, silver langurs, proboscious monkeys, and more. Afterwards we set up hammocks in the jungle to sleep in for the night and went for a walk through the jungle at night to see frogs, various insects, lizards, and more leeches. The night in our hammocks started out for me to be a slightly claustrophobic experience, but soon became one of the most comfortable sleeps I have ever had. After another early walk through the jungle we headed back to the MESCOT centre where we cooked our own lunch. I made the salad because all that involved was cutting up vegetables and avoiding standing over a gas cooker in the heat.
After lunch we relaxed for a while before heading into the ridiculously hot sun for some games of volleyball. Both matches were won while much sweat was lost. In the sweaty state we were all taken from the volleyball courts to our hosts for the night's traditional home-stay. Our hosts were a lovely old lady who spoke no english, her daughter who spoke quite well, and another of her daughters three year old sons. I spent the afternoon playing with the little boy until dinner was served, where we ate river fish, rice, and pumpkin. The food was nice enough to eat but not amazing..
After a very hots night sleep in our hosts house that was also interrupted by the local mosque's calls to prayer we were up early and on our way to Sandakan, our leaving port for turtle island.
Kinabatangan was a wildlife filled region and a shining example of successful localised development initiatives that provide a sustainable environmental alternative to Malaysia's enormous, and destructive, palm oil plantations.