Hi all , thanks for your coments Mum. I have just returned to this olde worlde hotel after the most fantastic two days away, every moment incredible.
Who would have thought I woud actually touch an orang-utan as it ambled past! And shock the poms while inadvertantly delighting the locals. The things you see in the jungle.
Yesterday after breakfast met our now extended tour group, and I joined a group of 4 others in a minivan. On the two hour trip we took our first view of mighty Mt Kinabalu from about 95km, at Tamaruli suspension bridge. Truly majestic and looked much closer.
At a pitstop called Pekan Nabalu with the obligatory food and tat souvenir stalls I bought a bag of fresh pineapple, MYR2 = 80c, complete with fresh protein walking around at no extra cost. We relaxed over a cuppa and all getting on very well.
The ride climbed up continuously, for a while on a ridge back. Sights of verdant jungle, cleared secondary growth and bare land. Up into the mist. People living in everything from basic shacks and shanty groups to clay brick bungalows.
At the first stop in Mt Kinabalu world heritage park we had our first orchids, in the garden at the entrance. I don't know if you can ever see the maps on someof my stories, but I think we were at the Tambunan entrance.
I won't bore you with my detailed notes but at the orchid park part, plants were naturalised on to trees all around, and often name tagged, plus many others not tied on. The paths indicated we were on a tourist trail. However our guide Hermann very good on the botanic names.
In flower were mainly coelogyne and bulbophyllum and dendrochilum. The air smelled so clean and fresh, up here in the mist, 1600m and there were just orchids everywhere.
It became apparent that of the five I am the most interested in looking at the orchids, to the extent the others were soon satiated, whereas I was very keen and full of enthusiasm. And this new camera was taking excellent images.
Hermann asked if we would like to go to lunch or go to another orchid trail. The others said they were getting peckish. I was too, but 'is this going to be it?' I wondered. The clincher was that I said, 'I can take lunch every day for the rest of my life, but I cannot return here tomorrow.'
We compromised with having a quick lunch and then the second trail. What a good combination. It was a set round-table shared lunch. The English people were more comfortable with the familiar but one of the party is Chinese and we both enjoyed the meal. We even had local deer.
Lyn and I confused a young man when we exited from the mens tandas. We hadn't realised we were in the mens!
The second trail was higher in elevation and clearly a less touristic route. Some regretted not being told to bring boots that would cope with the mud. With no orchids naturalised here there were clearly fewer and it was disappointing from the perspective of seeing plants in flower. Yet seeing, breathing the mist, feeling the cool air and actually realising how close the jungle felt to the NZ bush, it was certainly a worthwhile effort for me.
We were up and down on the track and it was greasy, hey this is cloudforest jungle, but my level of fitness was 100% fine.
At this stage, we were meant to make tracks for the night's lodge, but we went off pst Ranau, read the next story. Its shorter.
xxM
