The Mountain!!
Father Christmas orchid
I had a lovely early night and even woke before the alarm (!). So I’m heading off to Kinabalu Park today with all my gear and the plan is to spend the day at the park walking some trails and then stay nearby before heading back to Kota Kinabalu on Saturday. Now perhaps if you look at a map you would see that this isn’t really making sense as I would be going to the park for one night to go back to KK for two nights to then go back past the park again to head off to Sandakan. The problem lies in that I couldn’t get too much info about trying to get a bus from Kinabalu Park to Sandakan, four hours away and my next destination. And I still have memories of when I was in Ecuador and having started out on a journey couldn’t get to the end and the only option was a very expensive cab ride :-)
So this seemed the safer option, of course hind sight is a wonderful thing and something I wish I had had before I made my decisions for today’s activity. I finally set off from the hostel around 8.30 and made the short walk with all my gear to the minivan terminal. It’s at this point that I praise my hind sight in packing light, or at least relatively light. My rucksac weighed just 12kg at Gatwick which I thought was pretty impressive, usually my crew bag weighs more than that. So 12kg and a lot of that is toiletries which as they get used will get binned. Anyway back to the trip. So I headed out with all my gear and found a minivan which was leaving in 5 mins to Kinabalu Park, the fare was RM16 (£3.00) not bad for a three hour journey I thought.
A nice plant!
My plan for leaving KK relatively early was to get to the park in plenty of time for an 11am guided walk and a tour of the botanical gardens. Now this was to be the first time I had really been in a rainforest and I didn’t really know what I was supposed to wear (another reason for bringing all my gear) I turned up in shorts, vest top and Tevas (as usual) and planned to change into long shirt and long trousers, trainers, leach socks, rain coat etc. But when I got there and paid my fee to enter I asked the staff what I needed and was told I didn’t need to change.
A birds nest fern
I hurriedly changed my shoes though (after their price and the drama in getting them I’ve got to use them!) and made sure I had my leach socks handy if needed and headed off to the start point. I had asked someone about where to leave my big bag and ended up leaving it in the front of their office, they said it would be safe and I sure hope so as I left the laptop in it.
After all that time of hiking with a laptop in NZ I decided that this time a raincoat and leech socks should come first, I’m insured against the laptop being stolen (I think) but not against getting eaten by leeches! These are the leech socks I might point out that cost £17 in the UK and £3.80 in KK. There’s gotta be an importing opening there somewhere, I could sell them to all the other leech nervous people heading over to Borneo.
As far as leeches are concerned in this park there’s nothing at all to worry about, it hasn’t rained here for 5 weeks and apparently the temp is around 5 degrees higher than it normally is a this time of year. From a totally selfish point of view its great in one respect not so great in another, its great as there’s no leeches (so far) but not so great cause it is sooooooo hot!!
A pitcher plant
Anyway I digress, so I head off in search of the start of the guided walk and eventually found it with a few mins to spare! The Lonely Planet says its a two hour guided walk but in reality its about a 40 min stroll, nothing strenuous at all and more than anything we kept bumping into coach loads of Chinese, Japanese and Korean tourists! Anything that may have been living in the little part of the forest we visited was long gone or just camera shy perhaps. After the stroll there was a guided tour of the Botanical Garden which was more interesting and of course we saw more. We saw tiny little pitcher plants and one which is reported to be the biggest species in the world but because they’re growing it in a pot it’s not very big. I was really tempted to point out that if it was in the ground they could lay claim to the largest in the world but I guess they’re the experts huh?
Orangutan fern
After all the guided tours I remembered that I didn’t have any accommodation for that night, the LP (two years out of date) says that dorm accommodation inside the park is RM45 per person, now it’s RM120! Fortunately though there seems to be quite a few places just outside the park so think I’ll take a look at those when I leave.
After a quick spot of lunch in the restaurant opposite the park I set off on some trails on my own. When you go into the park they give you a hand drawn photocopie
d map of all the trails around the area but apart from that you’re pretty much on your own. All started ok, I had asked the office what time I needed to collect my bag and as long as I was back by 4.30pm I’d be able to get it, ok good, and off I went. I did a couple of short trails which then joined with slightly longer trails and although nice to be out walking in places I could hear the phones ringing from different offices around the park as well as the constant drone of construction traffic for the new 5 star hotel they’re building at the park entrance, and as a result there wasn’t too much to look at to be honest, I managed to find a few of the things that were pointed out to me earlier but apart from that nothing spectacular.
So there I was wandering the trails of Kinabalu National Park having a nice little time, there were a few signs here and there which was fine and a few missing signs as well, now that should have been a clue I guess, anyway before I knew it and almost without me noticing the forest sounds soon overtook the sounds from the park and all of a sudden I realised I was no-where near the park and time was ticking on before my bag was locked away for the night and apart from being in the Kinabalu NP I had no real idea where I was. So I did what any good traveller and intrepid explorer would do and checked the signal on the phone! :-)
Anyway needless to say I made my way out and even got back to park HQ in time to get my bag back, I then set off in search for a bed for the night.
My bed for the night is at Rose Cabins, I just wish it smelt of roses instead of mould and didn’t have unwelcome giant moths taking up residence in the bathroom next to my bed!! Oh well for £3.80 a night you can’t expect miracles.
The monster moth
Some of my other room mates were attempting to climb the mountain the next day, it’s something I would really really love to do but I think to be fair I’m just being realistic and honest with myself when I say there’s no chance really, I just don’t think I’m strong enough! I mean fair enough never say never but it is 6 hours min straight up on the first day then another few hours the next day then all the way down again the same afternoon, it’s the downhill that’s a killer. I am disappointed of course but think perhaps I’m just being wise. I have another week or so here in Sabah though so I’ll see, hopefully I’ll meet people who have done it and get to hear their take on it and maybe if I meet someone who’s really unfit I’ll just go for it, I’ll let you know.
For now though an early night.
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