The River

What next for are 2 young (ish) explorers?
A nice leisurely trip down the river after the daft excesses of mountain climbing? Rather!!!
Before we left for our next adventure, I took the opportunity to do some more scuba diving in KK. I won't bore you with all the wicked fish I saw, except maybe that I saw my first frogfish, have a butchers at that fella :) In fact when I get a minute of time, I'll set up a diving blog to record all the fish that I see. Nice! The best thing about doing the diving was that I met this couple called Frankie and Gino. I thought they looked familiar and it turns out they've been living in Brighton for the last 2 years, I still can't place them though. Anyone know a couple called Frankie and Gino? Anyway they're the kind of people who we'd be friends with at home, well sound! There's a lot of idiots (I'm being polite) we've met whilst on our little jaunt, so its really refreshing to meet some normal (ish) people :)
I'm also counting as normal, an Aussi girl called Anna that we met on a trip out to one of the islands, apart from telling me my new mask was crap, she turned out to be just as sound and we'll be sure to pay her a visit at her undersea palace below Perth (she works at an underwater viewing facility south of Perth, so no, she's not a mermaid queen).

Kinabatangan River is wildlife central smack in the middle of Sabah. Drive inland for about 3 hours from Sandakan to a place called Sukau and you're there. Much of that drive is along a bumpy nightmare of a road, surrounded on all sides by the wreckage of logging and huge Palm oil plantations, not a great sight, but they've got to make a living out of some of the land I suppose. It's difficult coming over here and not despairing at the decimation of the rainforests, but on the other hand we've destroyed most of our wild areas, so who are we to speak.

Thankfuly some of the rainforests are now protected and the river is a corridor of life left untouched through the plantations. We stayed at a place called Sukau Tomanggong Riverview Lodge, a simple place, but incredibly beautiful. It's places like this that make you realize how lucky we are to be able to come to Borneo and see the things we're seeing. Sitting on the river bank, beer in hand, watching monkeys over the other side of the river and hornbills flying over your head, is what life is all about!
After settling in at the lodge we were quickly on our way down the river in a small boat, just the 2 of us plus our guide and boat driver. We were in for an amazing 2 hours of wildlife spotting, I thought we'd seen a lot at Baku, but that was nothing compared to this experience. Within a few minutes of leaving we spotted some Proboscis monkeys sitting in the Mangrove trees nibbling away on the young leaves, noses wobbling.
You can never get bored seeing these monkeys, but after a while we set off down the river again and then saw some of those nasty long tailed macaques. Without having to beat them off with a stick, we carried on our river venture, hornbills flying overhead. Along the way we saw a type of bird called an Oriental Darter, looks like a heron type thing, also saw lots of egrets around the rivers edge. The guide, Addy, took our boat to a particular place on the river bank and in a tree a few meters into the jungle was an Orang Utan, asleep in its nest. Addy must have known that there was a nest here and we were just lucky that this time it had something in it. You could see a bit of orange fuzz and a big hand lazily hanging out of the nest and even though this was all you could see, I was still pleased that we'd seen a bit of an Orang Utan in the wild. Suddenly there came a massive banging sound and the little bit of orange fuzz turned into afull grown, huge,adult male Orang Utan, looking a bit pissed off that it had been woken up. The boat driver had gone around to the tree and had started banging on it as hard as he could, a sure fire way to wake an Orang Utan up. The big ape sat there in its tree looking resigned and we were able to get some pics and get a good look at it. Absolutely superb! We'd been hoping to see some wild elephants as well and they'd been seen only the other day, but unfortunately our luck ran out, which was a shame, cause they're pygmy elephants, a type only found in Borneo. Still, on a walk through the jungle the next day, we saw some elephant footsteps and poo, bonus! Carrying on the river cruise, we saw lots more birds, Chris and Tina, you would love it here, even I'm liking the birds, we saw a sea eagle, a buzzard and a storm stork. We also came across some pig tailed macaques that looked a lot more placid and friendly than their long tailed, evil brothers. That was our first of 3 cruises and we'd already seen 4 types of monkey, 2 types of hornbill, 6 or 7 other bird species and a monitor lizard.
The next morning we were up bright and early to go on a dawn river trip. Mist rolled across the river making for an atmospheric ride. We saw plenty of birds flying about and saw monkeys scampering about in the trees. The boat pulled up under a tree at one point and Addy pointed out a snake curled up in the branches, very cool! We also saw a couple of Orangs in the trees, but it was from a bit of a distance and they just looked like black blobs. Later that day we went for a walk through the rainforest with Addy. I should point out at this point that it was my birthday, so thanks for me emails, cards and presents! I was also to receive another present on the walk, though I wouldn't discover it till much later. The walk was hot, sweaty and a bit muddy, all the things we'd come to expect from the jungle and was fairly pleasant, we didn't see a lot of animal activity, except for a few insects and a monitor lizard. We were sitting down enjoying some beer back at the lodge, we'd had a shower and were chilling out. Sam suddenly noticed some blood on the front of my shorts. Alarmed I went back to my room to investigate and discovered to my horror that a leech had got me, on my old man!!! A jungle birthday present! The leech had long gone, but I'd picked up another leech on my leg earlier in the day and removed it before it could do any harm, so I knew it was a leech. It must have shimmied its way up my leg looking for something juicy to have a drink from and it hit the jackpot! That was my first leech bite and although it didn't hurt I don't fancy another one....in that area :)

The final cruise was at night and allowed us to see some owls, the first owls I've ever seen I think and with the aid of a torch powered by a car battery I was able to get a photo. We also saw some leopard cats which are basically normal size cat types, but with leopard colouring. Of our 2 hour cruise, half of it was spent moored to the bank as the engine wouldn't work, I was seriously thinking we were going to be spending the night out there until Addy got it fixed.
The wildlife around the Kinabatangan river was simply unbelievable! It's one of a growing number of experiences that will stay with us forever and if anyone is thinking about their next holiday, its holiday of a lifetime type stuff here in Borneo :)

More wildlife photos, no leech shots ;)