Pitcher plants
This morning we’re off to Bako NP for a couple of days before we leave for home on Friday. Bako is one of the best places in Borneo to see the Proboscis monkey totally in the wild, first though we had to get there!
After breakfast we made our way to the mini-van stop in Kuching, popping into the post office once again on our way ((!) still no joy Mick!) there was a van going in our direction which to us seemed pretty full but they managed to squeeze us all in and after giving us a tour of all the factories and local residences as they dropped all the other passengers off we, along with a little family of four, finally arrived at the NP entrance. The only way of getting to the NP is by private bus and boat and because of the parks remote location you have to book the return mini-van as well as the return boat, it was fortunate we were able to share all of this with the other family and share the costs each time. The boat trip took 30 mins and went out into the sea and around the headland (fortunately the sea wasn’t too rough :-)) arriving at the park through a mangrove forest which was interesting.
The boat trip to the park
Mangroves
Our room wasn’t quite ready for us so instead we dumped off our gear and headed off for a bite to eat at the cafe, the food was tasty, not quite Mulu NP standards but good all the same, at least the monkeys enjoyed it! I had heard from several people along my trip about the mackac monkeys and how when you’re sitting at the cafe they’ll come onto the porch in around where people are eating and take food right off of their plates! The mackacs are actually quite vicious, especially where food is concerned, so if they’re coming to take food off of your plate, chances are you’re not going to argue with them! We did see this a few times while we were there and we decided that the best course of action was just to eat relatively fast and not take your eyes off of your plate or off of the monkeys for even one second!
Straight after lunch we got ourselves ready to head off on a nice long walk through the park, we’re only here for the one night so it’s nice to try and make the most of it while we can. The trail we opted for was the Lintang Trail which passes through nearly all of the vegetation types found at Bako, it took us around 4 hours and rained on us a couple of times but it was a lovely walk and we managed to find some lovely little pitcher plants as well as some other interesting vegetation.
Bako NP vegetation
As we made our way back around the loop towards the park we took a slight detour onto another trail which was reported to be a good place for seeing Proboscis monkey. It’s always so nice to be out doing some walking and see all the lovely things the park has to offer that time really does go very quickly (as we were to discover)! As with the other parks I had visited you have to let the staff know at park HQ where you’re going so that if you don’t return they know where to find you, the thing is in this case after having completed the first part of our walk we made this little detour. I guess the key now is to not fall over and break a leg or we may never be found!! The light was certainly fading and of course we had no torch with us (!) but we still carried on (in the name of wildlife spotting of course) and fantastically we were rewarded with the most amazing sighting of a family of Proboscis monkeys hanging out and having dinner. It is thought that there are only approximately 150 monkeys in the entire park and here we were just watching a family group eating and interacting with each other. It was incredible and so great to see them totally in the wild. We spent about 40 mins just watching the monkeys and getting the ‘award winning shots’ before continuing along the rest of the trail that was to take us to the beach.
Proboscius Monkeys
The beach we arrived at was absolutely gorgeous and completely deserted; it was like a scene from Jurassic Park. The sun was going down, there was a storm brewing out to sea, it was surrounded on all sides (apart from the sea side of course!) by rainforest vegetation, there were a few huge boulders on the beach and we were the only ones there, it certainly felt like a scene from a movie to us.
Jurassic Park
That was until 10 mins later when another couple joined us!
Back at park HQ we were the last ones to pick up our room key as we’d been out all afternoon and longer than even we thought; I think they were waiting for us so they could lock up! Having collected our gear, we headed off to our room to sort ourselves out, shower and have dinner. We’re leaving the park at around lunch time tomorrow so need to get an early start really to enjoy the rest of the park.
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