Day 110 Mulu to Kota Kinabalu

Just a relaxing morning no trekking before our flight out to Miri to clear Sabah customs then back on the plane to Kota Kinabalu, where landing was delayed for 15 mins while the runway was cleared of something we didn't quite catch over the speaker. 

As we took off from the landing strip in Mulu I took photos see below & we flew over Brunei & I got a couple of pics out the plane window so that's what the photo of a distant beach is.

We checked in to our hostel got sorted walked out of our room door & walked in to Max. By pure coincidence Max & Silvia were staying in the room next to ours. We went out for a seafood dinner by the waterfront & exchanged photos/stories of the previous few days. After dinner we bought a huge pineapple from the markets for dessert.

Day 109 Mulu

Our only room mate left yesterday so managed a private room from what could have been a 20 bed dorm.   We slept until 8:30 then got breakfast. We did a nice walking trail around the river seeing some large squirrels and birds eating fruit from the trees as well as some more unusual insects.
We returned to HQ for lunch before heading out on the waterfall trail. We had been warned of leeches due to the rain so we went armed with high socks and a bag of salt but thankfully we saw none. When walking fast to avoid leeches you never see as much so massive trees and a birds nest is all we managed. The waterfall was lovely but Tim decided against a swim since the water was merky and anything could be in there. We headed back to HQ walking just fast enough to keep in front of the thunderstorm coming.

Day 108 Mulu Deer & Lang cave

Up early this morning for our canopy walk tour at 7am. This canopy walk is the longest in the world at 480metres & varying in height from 20-35 metres above the forest floor. It was high and taking the first few steps out on to the wooden planks was a little scary! Tim was fine with it though.
We saw a pygmy squirrel, some birds flying above the canopy catching flies and some others in the trees. Nothing that hung around long enough to get photos of unfortunately but the walkway was a great way to get a different perspective of the forest. On the walk to the start of the canopy walkway we saw a hammerhead worm and a type of bamboo which is filled with ants and if you touch the branch the ants make a rattle sound to warn you. We returned to camp and relaxed before our next cave tour at 2pm to Deer & Lang cave. We saw a green tree lizard which was super cool & a few birds around park HQ.
Our guide for the caves was amazing she was so interested in everything and pointed out lots of insects seeing/finding them in an instant. Our first cave stop was Lang cave which was the smallest of the show caves at only a few hundred metres long, cool formations with limestone & the odd bat hanging from the ceiling.
Next to Lang cave was Deer cave, This one is enormous, The biggest in the world! It was quite smelly in parts due to tonnes of bat excrement all over the floor, red in colour giving a Mars landscape effect. The 3 million bats hung from the ceiling making it black and their chatter could be heard. We saw a mangrove snake black with yellow stripes which the guide said must have followed something in, since they aren't usually found in there. It was lashing rain outside which created two 'showers' made of stone from the ceiling they were awesome & must have taken so long to form. We went straight back to camp HQ once the tour finished since the bats wouldn't be coming out to feed with the heavy rain.

Day 107 Mulu Clearwater & Wind cave

Every national park seems to have a star attraction and for Mulu it is the massive caves. Today we visited two show caves Wind cave & Clearwater cave, we took the option to walk to the first cave from HQ rather than take the boat with the guide and rest of the group so it meant an early start to meet them on time. After rushing down some breakfast we were on the trail before 8am, it was a tough walk with 1000 steps which were so slippery crawling might have been faster & would have hurt Rachel less when she fell hitting the same elbow bruised from Kuching's stairs. It took just over an hour to Wind cave and we passed through a cave called Moonmilk on the way. The guide took us through Wind cave then on to Clearwater cave which was massive with a crystal clear river running through it.
Tim went for a swim where the river from the cave came to the surface outside, then we walked back to camp HQ just catching the end of lunch service at 2:30pm. On the way back we saw some large amazing butterflies on the ground in the sun so spent ages taking photos!
We then got the key to the bird watching tower in the forest, its 20 metres up amongst the taller trees but a good 10metres short of giving a view over the canopy. Nothing much was seen up there so back to HQ to chill before dinner & the night walk.
At 7pm under cloudless sky the guide took us round on the 1st night walk in 5 days due to the evening rains. We saw some large spiders including a big huntsman, several stick insects, sleeping birds(kingfishers & others) super size crickets, centipedes & frogs(tree & ground). it was a great night walk we also finally found the insects making all the noise at night, no mammals on this walk though.
A massive day today on the trail before 8am and home after 9pm that will burn off some of the McD's we had in Kuching!

Day 106 to Mulu

A new record I think for us today, 4 airports in less than 12 hours. At 4:30am when we arrived at Kuching airport we were given a breakfast voucher and a 3 hour delayed departure. On our way to Miri airport what we thought was our only stop was a short stop at another airport where all the passengers changed except us and another girl. In Miri we had a few hours before the half hour flight to Mulu. There are no roads to Mulu national park the only way is by plane or boat up a long river. While coming in to land we took photos of a thunder/rain cloud then got pretty wet in the 50metre dash from the plane to the building.
5 minutes in a truck later and we were at the park checking in for 4 nights & booking all our guided walks.
Knowing the rain effects whether 3 million bats come streaming out of Deer cave each evening or not, we thought it best to try today since it cleared up a bit. An easy 45 min plank walk got us there in time to relax then see 3 Hornbills fly over before the bats started coming out. They came out in flocks of a few hundred at a time, some of the unlucky ones got picked off by bat-hawks. Cool to see them come out of the massive cave twisting & turning as a group.
The park hostel was a 20 bed room but by some stroke of luck the only two beds available were in a room of 3 beds not out in the main room, score!
Also added a couple of bug picks one of darth vader the moth and the other of your typical garden snail but 3 times bigger than the biggest one you can remember seeing.

Day 105 Kubah

Scorpion! He was about the size of my whole hand and we saw him on the path going in to Kubah National park. Rachel bravely stomped her feet in front of it while I got the camera out to take this photo. We had seen one in Bako but this guy was 10 times bigger and a strange metallic blue colour.

First stop once we got in the park was to check for some friends Silvia & Max, they were in the park but not at their room.

We walked to a waterfall with a great swimming hole where I took a dip, then up along a ridge to a view point over the greater Kuching area and towards Bako National Park.

There were leeches Rachel picked up 3 but was quick to react with salt making them fall away, I had none.

Day 104 Semenggoh wildlife centre

Hired a scooter last night so we could leave early & be out at the park in time to see the Orangutans come in for feeding at 9am. They are wild and only come so regularly at this time of year because food is scarce in the jungle so we were told. Viewing time was limited to an hour while they fed at 9am & at 3pm outside of this its everyone out.
We were told to look for Richie, he was the big guy & we saw him. Richie ate first while a dozen others watched him from the trees around us waiting for their turn.
It was great to see them and awesome to watch how smoothly they glide through the branches of trees but the experience was spoilt a little with the amount of people, probably close to 100 in a small area, many were kids and the rangers repeated reminders to be quiet fell on deaf ears.
Sent another package home today, the 1st one sent 6 weeks ago in Vietnam hasn't arrived yet so hopefully this one arrives before Christmas!

Day 103 Bako

We were up and out early to start the Serait trail which was supposed to be a good trail for spotting proboscis monkeys. It was a tough trail - walking in all the forests seems to be as you always end up dripping in sweat due to the humidity. We saw some more cool insects and plants but on the return part of the trail we heard load crashing sounds in the trees and grunting. Proboscis Monkeys!! It was amazing to stand there and watch and listen to the animals moving all around us. At one point we couldnt see any monkeys but we could hear them going mad in the trees. We left that troop of monkeys and continued on the trail where we saw another troop. Brilliant!

We returned to our room to have a shower before lunch and before we left the Park. Around the accommodation area we saw some more bearded pigs with some piglets. We heard banging on one of the hostel roofs across the path from ours - turned out to be Proboscis monkeys jumping from the trees to the trees nearer to us. we watched them for a while and then left for lunch. We left the park at 3pm by boat where we saw a kingfisher and the same eagle soaring over the sea.

Bako was incredible and we saw more than expected!