Hi All,
Long drive to Kinabatagan river. 400+ km drive and 8hrs. Extremely frustrating driving as many slow palm oil transport trucks on road and dangerous 4wd drivers. Takes about twice estimated time of travel. Drove 150km to petrol station and arrived with fuel light flashing. Got about 400km out of tank at 16 km per litre. Lucky. Got lost at Lahad datu. Signs on Malaysian roads are terrible.
Got to Gomantong cave about 20km from accommodation and decided to just ring from there to let them know we would be late. Found that they had cancelled our booking! Very annoyed but they said they could find alternate accommodation. Cave is famous for the millions of bats and swifts that live inside. The swift nests are collected. Covering the floor below them were large areas of guano, seething with ravenous cockroaches ,earwigs cave centipedes, millipedes, beetles, worms, spiders - a variety of bugs and a closed ecosystem. Everything in the cave is recycled and reused. At times the ammonia smell in the air was so overpowering that it was hard to catch your breath .The walkway was quite slippery and treacherous at times because millions of cockroaches and the various by-products from animals covered the hand rails so they could only be used as a last resort but we thought to ourselves if David Attenborough can do it then so can we .The cave is an impressive sight and we walked the lap with our umbrellas raised to prevent bombings from above. We exited the cave and inhaled deeply and waited for dusk..Unfortunately with dusk came lots of mosquitoes. First slap on my hand and at least 5 were dead! I was losing faith as they had not exited the cave for 3 days and was just about ready to leave when they started streaming out of the cave.At the height of the exodus, there was a continuous stream of bats flowing from the cave and high in the sky above us they united to form a ribbon which appeared to dance in the evening sky.A truly spectacular and amazing sight that has to be seen and heard to believed.Just like us the bat hawks had been patiently awaiting the arrival of the bats and within minutes they were hunting and from what we could see they ate well that night.
Headed to accommodation (Greenview b&b) and were redirected to barefoot b & b. Went to check in but had a misunderstanding with the owner about cost so had to go back to Greenview b & B to get it sorted out. Was ready to explode at this point but eventually settled down after dinner.On the drive back to Barefoot B &B I saw a Malaysian Badger so it made up for the irriation of have to drive back to the lodge which was only 5-10minutes drive anyway. Went on our evening boat cruise with a very enthusiastic and amusing wildlife spotter.The guide kept apologizing for the lack of wildlife but all on board were impressed with what he did find: numerous species of brightly coloured kingfischers trying to catch 40 winks on tree branch only metres above the river,owls, proboscis monkeys,silvered leaf langurs, several species of macaques,various other birds,nesting swiftlets and baby crocodiles.At one point the long boat started to enter a small cave and from the noise being emitted from inside of the cave it seemed obvious to us that there had to be bats in there.We covered our heads with a scarf and said a silent prayer of thanks to the travel gods above for directing us to seats 3 rows back in the boat because there were indeed bats within the cave and the couples in the first two rows obviously frightened the bats and they promptly dumped their mother loads onto their heads and shirts.The cruise was suppose to be 2hrs in duration but I think that our guide who was obviously in the hunt of bigger nocturnal creature kept us out on the water till almost 2300hrs almost an hours after the 1st boat had returned .
Another relatively early start for us as we had an early morning river cruise starting at 6am.The birds are much more active during daylight hours so even when we did see them it was much more difficult to capture them on the camera.The chatter echoing along the river was at times almost deafening Hundreds and hundreds of monkeys bounced between trees on the hunt for breakfast and maybe some companionship.The rivers side were teeming with activity in the relatively cool morning air .At moment point our cruise took us down a side stream and it was from here that we caught our first glimpse of two wild orang-utans,mother and child, nesting amongst to trees.The think that the future for these animals and many of the others that reside in the forests of Borneo is bleak and maybe the children of tomorrow will never get the opportunity to see these animals outside of a zoo or in books so we have been lucky.
We checked out of Barefoot B&B and checked into Greenview B &B.The day was heating up but rather than retreat to the shadows our group of 6 plus guide gathered gumboots climbed aboard the boat and headed upstream for a jungle walk.If you have never walked in a jungle before then it is probably difficult to understand the intense discomfort that is involved in doing so but I will try and take you on this journey of discomfort.Unfortunately the jungle is full of hunger little critters and this necessitates the wearing of long sleeves and long pants and closed footwear.Critters seem to have big teeth in the jungle which means that you also need to coat yourself in a layer of insect repellent.Generally it feels a little like being wrapped in cling wrap and then being asked to walk around in a sauna for an hour or two with the humidity hovering around 90-100% and the temperature being 30-40 degrees put simply it is exhausting and no matter how much fluid you consume output is always higher so you are constantly drinking and fighting dehydration. We obviously have a sadomasochistic streak within us as we do this for fun on our quest for adventure.!! As suspected all the sensible animals have retreated to the coolest place that they can find at this time of the day so all that we see are butterflies and birds that are so hidden in the dense canopy of trees that we can hear them calling but can´t see them.
After lunch the remainder of the afternoon was spend chatting to others foreigners and asking the Malaysian staff questions about what we had seen whilst watching the river,the little creatures that inhabit the riverbanks and trees.Numerous squirrels showed us their tightrope skills as they scurried between trees and the multicoloured butterflies danced in the sun all in all it was a much needed relaxing afternoon.
We boarded the boat for the afternoon cruise and immediately we were greeted with the sight of hornbills flying overhead. At one stage we heard and then spotted.8 or 9 hornbills congregating in a tree,herons ,Egrets,Storks,Hawks , Eagles and many other types of birds seemed to be everywhere that we looked and so to did the various species of monkeys seemed
After dinner we were forced to choose between going on a night jungle walk in the swamp where we had a chance of seeing frogs and maybe a snake or two or boarding a boat and going on a spot light cruise.It wasn´t that hard to decide and we opted for the boat trip.We saw much the same as we had on the previous evening except that this time our guide managed to spot an utterly adorable slow loris (google tickle me slow loris and you should be able to find a utube filmclip) high in the treetops.
The reason why there is such an astonishing array of animals along the Kinabatangan river is that unfortunately all that remains of the forest is a narrow corridor of rainforest that clings to the riverbanks .Sadly the animals that can´t fly are trapped in a free range prison.because they are hemmed in by oil pam plantations.we know that hunting is still occuring in this area because the locals have told us that some of the villager´s like the taste of the native animals so yet again the future looks uncertain for these animals.The only thing that they have in their favour at this moment in time is that many of the locals are muslims and they don´t eat the native animals.
Opted out of the early morning boat trip and apparently didn´t miss anything .Packed the car said our goodbyes and head off for the drive back to Sandakan.via
labuk bay where the Proboscis monkey sanctuary is located.
Bye for now
David and vanessa
