Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Uncle Tan's Wildlife Adventure at the Kinabatangan River

Laura -- With very sore legs after our big climb, we got on a bus to head to Sandakan, on the east side of Sabah. We spent a nice evening there enjoying good food by the water and a wonderful hot shower and very comfy bed at the hotel.

View from our hotel room in Sandakan
First thing next morning, we took a cab to Sepilok - about an hour away. We spent the morning at the Orangutan sanctuary there. We got there early to see the feeding. There was a big platform with lots of ropes leading into the trees. When we arrived there were about 10 small long tail macaques chilling on it, eating leaves and climbing around. They all knew to leave though as soon as the orangutans started slowly swinging their way over. A man came with a basket of vegetables and bananas, he spread some on the platform, and kept some in the basket to make sure all the orangutans would get some. Four orangutans came over the hour we watched, and it was funny to watch their personalities. One just sat and ate the veggies, one would take a handful of bananas and sort of hide to eat them, and one insisted on picking her own bananas from the basket, and wasn't happy unless she had a bunch in each hand, and occasionally each foot too! The last one just sat back and watched all this until the keeper left and then came to the platform to eat when the others left. It was pretty neat, we were watching all this from maybe 10m away!







After this we went on a short walk through the forest (our legs refused to go further once we got to a hill!) On the way back though Jerome somehow spotted a really cool stick insect on a leaf! He was very excited. And the rest of the walk took forever since he had to examine every leaf and stick!!


Stick insect


We then went just down the road to Uncle Tan's Ops base, where we checked in for our 3 day jungle adventure! We had a very tasty lunch, and relaxed a bit waiting for all the guests. At about 2:30 we got in a shuttle van for a two hour drive to the Kinabatangan River. We transferred to a small boat and rode down the river for 45 minutes to get to camp. On the way our boatman spotted two crocodiles, a small 1m long one and a medium 3m long one. We also saw quite a few long tail macaques in the trees.




At camp, we had a briefing, were assigned to huts, and we had a very tasty dinner with about 12 different dishes! Then at 9, after it was very dark, we got back in the boat for our night river expedition. The guide had a super strong flashlight he scanned the banks with. We saw amusing proboscis monkeys, more macqaques, sleeping kingfishers

The next morning we were up at 6 for another river cruise. This time we saw mostly birds: two types of hornbills, a sea eagle, kytes, a kingfisher as well as a small monitor lizard.

Two hornbills sitting at the top of the tree

After breakfast at camp, we went out again, for a jungle trek this time. Due to the time and heat, there weren't many animals, but Akin showed us all the jungle plants, telling us what was poison and what was medicinal. At some points we could hardly hear him over the cicadas! We saw funny red legged millipedes, long legged spiders and cotton bugs too.



Molted carapaces of cicadas



Caterpillar



After lunch it was extremely hot and humid, and everyone found a hammock or somewhere to rest and try and stay cool. At 5 it started pouring rain, just in time for our evening boat ride. We all got into our rain gear and rented rubber boots and on the boat. And boy were we glad. We saw tons of proboscis monkeys, silver leaf monkeys and a big group of flying fox bats flying overhead with a sunset background, as the rain finally ebbed.



As darkness set in, we landed on the river bank, and made our way precariously up the extremely muddy bank. Jerome got stuck and I almost fell helping him and the corner of our camera got a bit muddy, but was fine! The night trek through the jungle was very cool and a bit eerie. We spent about an hour following our guide who pointed out sleeping birds, jumping spiders, wolf spiders -one carrying a big egg sack, lantern bugs, a jungle crab and lastly a Bornean Blue Tarantula!!! Pretty crazy to see it just hanging out in a tree!


Sleeping butterfly

Jumping spider

Tractor millipede

Sleeping kingfisher

Lantern bug




Bad picture of the tarantula (on the right side of the tree)



Back at camp we had dinner and found a scorpion nest with a big one and several babies, a few metres from the dining hut. And joined in a birthday party for one of the guides.

Next morning we had one last river cruise. Saw more hornbills and sea eagles and I spotted a pretty big crocodile laying in the mud with his mouth open! Then made the return trip to Sandakan,where we had about 24 hours to get laundry done, get clean again, have a great night's sleep and eat some good food before catching a flight back to Kota Kinabalu where did some diving!

Friday, May 9, 2014

Climbing Mount Kinabalu

Jerome -- It's been 5 days since we climbed Mount Kinabalu, and our legs are still sore.

View of Mount Kinabalu from afar

Mount Kinabalu is the 20th highest peak in the world by topographic prominence (which means its sticks out more vs the surrounding mountains). The peak is at 4095 m (13,435 ft).  It's also known for being a fairly "easy" climb - no special equipment or experience is necessary.



We arrived at the park the night before our climb, in time to have dinner and pack our day packs for the climb (rather than our much heavier backpacks). We only brought the bare essentials: a change of clothes, toiletries, a warm base-layer (it's only 3 - 5°C at the summit at night), rain jackets, headlamps, cameras, gloves, some snacks, and 4L of water. We also rented a trekking pole for each of us - I think it helped a lot, especially to take some pressure off our knees during the decent. We left the rest of our luggage in storage at the park headquarters.

We were up early to meet our mountain guide and get started. Our guide was Ananias, a local from Ranau, who has been a guide for about 2 years. As a guide, he climbs to the summit 3 times each week - hard to imagine, once was hard enough! Before guiding, he worked as a porter - hauling gear and supplies up to Laban Rata. Work for porters is even harder - they go up and down to Laban Rata 5 days per week and carry heavy loads - propane tanks, drinks, food and other supplies/equipment!



Timpohon Gate to Laban Rata
Time: 8:15 am - 1:45 pm
Distance: 6.13 km (3.81 mi)
Elevation: 1866 - 3273m  (6122 - 10738 ft)
Track via Endomondo

Timpohon Gate

The first section of the climb consists of a mix of wooden stairs and rocky boulders. There's lots of vegetation on both sides of the trail during this section. It's pretty much continuously up - very few flat sections. Every km, or so there was a little rest area with some shaded benches - nice to be able to catch our breath. We had a quick lunch break at the 4 km mark. As we ascended, we definitely started to notice the altitude. Our legs didn't feel very tired, but it was harder to catch our breath. For the top 3 km or so we couldn't see much beyond the immediate trail - lots of clouds / fog blocked the view towards the summit, as well as to the valley.

Endless stairs!

At 
the 2 km mark!
It was quite a relief to arrive at Laban Rata. Laban Rata consists of a cluster of small lodges for climbers to stay, and a central lodge that had a restaurant. It was actually pretty cool already (probably something like 14/15°C) so we had some tea when we arrived. It really hit the spot! After a quick, cold shower and new, non-sweaty clothes and I was feeling much better.

Laban Rata

After a buffet dinner at 4:30 pm we headed for bed. Bed was a small, unheated room with three bunk beds. Mine squeaked every time I moved.

Laban Rata to Low's Peak (and back)
Time: 2:45 am - 8:30 am
Distance: 5.5 km (3.4 mi)
Elevation: 3273 - 4095 m (10738 - 13435 ft)
Track via Endomondo


We were up again at 1:30 am.  We put on all our warm clothes and after a quick "supper" began our final ascent.  Unlike the previous section when the starting times are relatively staggered, nearly everyone leaves Laban Rata at about the same time for the summit.  At least initially it was a pretty long, slow-moving queue of climbers.  It was actually sort of neat to look down and see the long line of headlamps snaking up the mountain.

The first section of the climb is just stairs, but the we quickly reached the "ropes section".  This section starts just about at the tree-line. A thick white rope is anchored into the rocks and is used to pull yourself up inclines, keep stability on ledges, and as a general marker for the path.  Laura was most nervous about this section of the climb, but she didn't have any problems at all.  Quite a few other climbers did abandon the climb at this section though.  I actually liked the ropes section the most - it's much more interesting than the endless stairs!  The crowd of climbers thinned / spread out pretty significantly at this point.

Ropes section (on the way down)

More ropes

As we ascended it got colder and colder. The climb was enough effort that we were sweating hard, but anytime we stopped our wet clothes quickly chilled us.  A very weird combination of sweating and freezing.  We were dressed pretty lightly compared to other climbers - we saw one guy wearing a full snowsuit (including the snow pants)!

The last kilometer or so is a large inclined granite plateau, and finally a more inclined ascent up Low's peak.  We arrived just as the sky was beginning to lighten with the rising sun.  It was quite spectacular to see our surroundings after having climbed in darkness.  We were above an ocean of clouds. The peak itself was a bit of a zoo, not too much room and a lot of climbers jockeying to take pictures.  We didn't stay at the peak for too long before starting the decent (partially because of the long decent ahead of us, partially because we were freezing).  It felt great to start the decent after going up for so long! And it was really nice to have great views the whole way down.

At the peak!

Sunrise at the summit

The two of us, slightly down from the summit

View of the South Peak



Beginning the trek down



By 8:30 we were back in Laban Rata for breakfast and a quick break before our decent to Mesilau.

Laban Rata to Mesilau Nature Resort
Time: 9:30 am - 4:00 pm
Distance: 7.92 km (4.92 mi)
Elevation: 3273 - 2000 m (10738 - 6562 ft)
Track via Endomondo

There are two routes up Mount Kinabalu, one is about 6 km from Timpohon Gate and the other is about 2 km further to Mesilau Nature Resort.  We booked our final night at Mesilau so that we'd be able to try both routes.  The first couple km were pretty good, but clouds and fog rolled in and out knees started to hurt from the decent - I think we were just counting the km for the last half of the trek.  I was hoping that since Mesilau is at a higher elevation than Timpohon (and the trail is longer), it would mean that the decent would be more gradual.  Instead we had an extra 300 m  ascent on the way down!

Fog rolling in

Neat pitcher plants along Mesilau trail

Another pitcher plant

We were super happy to arrive at Mesilau. A bit to our dismay we found that the resort is set up as multiple buildings with fairly steep hills inbetween them.  Our lodge was up a hill and was the furthest from the reception!  It was great to have a shower and get some food though.  Eugene, the restaurant's manager was particularly nice and arranged a special late lunch for us.

All-in-all we're both pretty proud of having made it up Mount Kinabalu.  The one thing I didn't like is that I found that I had to look down the whole time because the paths are uneven and require your complete attention.  The clouds also make the climb fairly monotonous as you don't get to see the progress of your ascent.  It would have also been nice to have more time to explore the summit - maybe an extra night at Laban Rata (I'm not sure if that's allowed).  Laura's reserving the right to veto any future mountains... but I'm already trying to convince her that we should try Half Dome in Yosemite.