It's been a while since I've been near a PC in the last week, so lots of updates are to follow! (Internet is hard to find in the jungle and on tropical Islands... ;))
I'm having issues with my photobucket site at the moment, so check back in a day or so to see new pictures. I have been able to upload some to Facebook though, which you can all view here, although they are resized for facebook when you upload, so they are not the best quality. Video's will have to wait!
So on Wednesday morning I left Sepilok Nature Resort on the local bus (bugger all room to put your bags etc when it is full of locals, so had it on my lap for an hour!) and headed out to Uncle Tans jungle camp office which was about 16km back out of Sandakan on the road back to KK. When I got there the main man mentioned that the camp was flooded quite badly, but they were still running jungle treks and taking people in, so it was up to me if I wanted to carry on with the trip. Like hell I was going to let some water stop me, so I signed up the paperwork and sat down to eat some lunch provided by them.
After a little while the other people going to camp today arrived after visiting Sepilok Orangutan Center. I had a bit of a natter with some of those who were just leaving about the water, and they confirmed that it did not detract from a good stay and seeing lots of wildlife...
Our packs were loaded into a 4x4 truck and we were loaded into a minivan for an hour journey to the ferry point on the Kinabatagan River. Once there I employed my ultra trendy, bright yellow rain coat that I'd bought in the shop next to the office as it started raining pretty heavily as we got onboard the river boats. They were quite small boats, seating 8 people, there were two with passengers and one with all of our bags, which were getting nice and wet by now, lol!
The ride into the camp was another hour on the river, which is wider than normal due to the flood and muddier than usual for the same reason! We saw plenty of Macaques and some Proboscis monkeys on the trip into camp. The Proboscis is only found here in Borneo, so it was nice to get some good sightings from the river. They are quite big and they jump fearlessly around in the trees above the water, some with babies clinging to them.
Because the area was so heavily flooded, it meant that the river boats could plough their way through the jungle estuaries all the way up to camp, rather than stop partway and walk through the jungle with our packs to the lake bank where the camp is.
The camp was seriously flooded, with the wooden walkways to the huts and toilets under water by a good few inches. Over the next few days this rose and when we came to leave it was above the knee! It didn't cause too many problems though, apart from having wet feet much of the time! :)
The boats could literally stop at the camp site walkway and we got off and were shown to our huts. They were simple wooden huts, with thin (damp) mattresses and nets. The huts were open but had locking doors and the doors and window openings were cover with chicken wire, to stop the Macaque monkeys from stealing all of our things! Forgetting to bolt the door when you leave in the morning can be desasterous as they will squeeze in and take things from your packs! There were also rats around, so food in your bag was a big no-no as they would make holes in your stuff searching it out.
We relaxed in the open dining/sitting area in camp and got to know some of the people there, who were all really nice peeps. Around 19:30 we had a briefing from the staff who were very friendly and welcoming and insisted that this was our house and we should make ourselves at home and do whatever we like. The briefing was just to acclimatise us to our new home and to tell us about the trips and treks to come. We then had a really nice dinner made by the lads that work there and I sat and played cards with a few of the people from my boat until the night lake safari which left at 21:00.
The night safari was excellent, we saw kingfishers, owls and butterflies and the ride on the lake for an hour was really nice. Once back at camp everyone was bushed and we retiered to sleep ready for our 6am start tomorrow with a morning river safari...
