Arrived in Christchurch - NZ

Here we finally in Christchurch New Zealand and this is the view from the Port Hill, awesome

The Wilds of Borneo

We’ve been in Australia for a month now, we are about to leave for New Zealand, with all the hassles we’ve had with NZ visa’s I’ve not had the chance to bring you all up to date with what we’ve been doing.
This is a very brief rundown of what we got up to in the month we were in Borneo. As I mentioned we escaped Vietnam and ran away to Kuala Lumpur from there we took a cheap flight over to Borneo. It’s massive by the way, we only visited the ‘Saba’ region but that was enough.

We got in touch with a friend of a friend called Simon, who runs an outdoor adventure type business, Simon and his wife Christine made Borneo for us by getting us cut price deals on activates and towards the end of our stay they put us up in their home. Without them the Borneo blog would be a blank page. I’m going to do this as a list of events so it’s not going to be much of a story.

Mt. Kinabarlu (4100m)

We climbed the highest mountain in South East Asia in 2 days and on the way back down we did the highest Via Ferata in the world. I have never been in so much pain after coming back down.

 

 Manucan Island

In the bay around Kota Kinabarlu (the capital of Saba) there are about 6 islands with the warmest sea I’ve ever swam in. it’s a same that most of the coral is dead. This is happening all over Asia and it seems that there is no stopping its decline.

We did see the biggest moth/butterfly it was the size of danny's hand and it's alled a Nymph.

Sepilock – Orang-utan sanctuary

We headed out to the rain forest proper to visit the orphaned orang-utans. Most of Borneo has been extensively logged and the rain forest replaced with palm oil plantations. The Orang’s can’t cross the land anymore so many babies are found in the plantations starving when their mothers have been killed.



The baby and adolescent Orang’s live in the jungle near the centre and twice a day they get fed. They build nests in the trees and when it feeding time they climb down the ropes and drop onto the feeding towers. They share the second meal of the day with the monkeys and it’s a full on battle and very amusing to watch.


Kinabatangan – Wildlife River cruise

After visiting the ‘tame’ Orangs we travelled to the river area of Kinabatangan to go and spot the really wild wildlife. We spent 3 days in a bunk house and at 6am each day we took the first of our river trips. It was beautiful having the sun come up over the river and watching the mist lift off the water.

We had another river trip in the afternoon and it’s on this one that we saw all the big animals such as a female Orang and her baby (a rare site), lots of Proboscis monkeys with the big round bellies and long wobberly noses and of course troop after troop of Pig Tailed Macaque who were the most fun to watch play.

Bahala Island
On our return to Kota Kinabarlu we stopped off at a little island that had been bolted for climbing. We got a very dodgy speed boat to drop us off and arranged for him to return the next day. We hoped he would as there is no other way off the island. We had great fun pretending to be Robinson Cruiso, cooking directly on our camp fire and making tea cups with old beer cans.

The only downside of the island was the huge amount of plastic that had washed up from the mainland and boats. The problem of plastic waste in South East Asia is huge, nobody is promoting recycling and very soon they will be drowning in plastic. It will be our problem very soon!

Tambayukon – 3rd Highest Mountain
The main feature of this 3 day trek and climb was the leeches! The climb took us into remote forest which doesn’t have that many visitors. The path was non existent at most points, it was very very humid and on top of that it rained. I spent 3 days wet through and at the end of the day it was impossible to dry your clothes.

All the wet weather brought out the leeches and there were hundreds of them. They are made of elastic bands and teeth, you can’t kill them unless you cut um in half. We had to wear ‘leech socks’ baggy cotton sock which you tie under your knee and this stops them getting into your feet. But they climb up the walking poles and drop from the trees. It was the grosses 3 days I’ve ever spent and I’d never do it again.

On the 2nd day it was summit day, I elected to stay in the camp while Danny and the 2 guides went off to the top. It was only 2k but it took the 6 hours as there was no path and they had to climb through the low laying densely packed trees.

It was a very unique experience and I doubt many people in the world will ever do anything like it. I’m glad I got the chance to see that aspect of our planet but I’d not choose to do it again.



White Water Rafting

The day before we were due to leave for Australia we had a day on the white water. Unfortunately the river level was so low that we sent a great deal of the time paddling. We ended up with a group of Brits and Aussies, we were in one boat and we were pitted against 6 boast of Taiwan or Koreans.

We decide that dirty tactics were the best way forward so we as better paddlers rammed their boats and mounted boarding parties, which invariably left us in the water and our paddles missing.

It was a great way to finish our time in the Wilds but we were very sore all over for the next 3 days. We had a great welcome in Aus and the chance to rest and recover.