Bukit Fraser Day Three: Soaked

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(for some reason the paragraph spacing has gone a bit weird but I can't be bothered to fix it right now)

Like yesterday, I started the day with some sunrise birding
and I saw a few interesting birds around although it was very foggy so visibility
was low. It’s great to be up with the siamang calls too.





While I was walking along just after sunrise I saw a small
mammal moving through the undergrowth by the path which looked to me like a
large dark vole. It then disappeared and ran across the path a few metres up and
it was rather odd looking being dark grey, almost black, with a glossy coat a distinctly
flat face and not much of a tail. Like an odd vole but fairly big. Looking
through the field guide, I think there’s only one possibility: a Hoary Bamboo
Rat. Bukit Fraser is just on the edge of the range map and I can’t find
anything about small mammal surveys to see if they are known to occur here and
I think it’s a bit unusual to be out in the day but I’m quite certain there’s
nothing else it could be. What a cool mammal!





I then headed back to breakfast and found that I had an
unwelcome guest: a leech. This time I found the leech sucking just above my
ankle and getting quite fat with my blood. It wasn’t very pleasant to remove
and the gushing blood looked quite spectacular. It was but a flesh wound. I got
the leech socks out after that though.





After breakfast I headed to the Hill Partridge spot that I
mentioned in the last post about hearing from a passing birder. I found the
site easily enough and there seemed to be a fairly obvious ground-bird pathway
going into the forest ,but I staked the site out for a while I didn’t see
anything. It’s quite close to a house with a dog that was free to wander around
and it did come up to have a sniff around which makes me wonder about how likely
it is for a partridge to come out.





After that I tried a few of the trails, I had been birding
along roads for the last two days but I decided to try the trails. There wasn’t
a huge amount to see though and it was much more difficult birding than from
the roads.





In the afternoon I decided to do the walk down to Jeriau
Waterfall which is about 4km each way. On the way though I had a fantastic
siamang sighting in the trees directly above me. A pair crossed the road by an
overhanging tree right overhead followed by a youngster. They then sat in a
tall tree just across the road and I noticed that there was not just the one
youngster, but the female seemed to also have a baby clinging to its fur
although it was difficult to get a clear view looking up and silhouetted. Another cool thing at the top of the walk down
to the waterfall was a mud bank by the roadside with lots of holes for trapdoor
spiders and tarantulas with some pretty big tarantulas in holes surrounded with
silk which came up to the entrance when slightly touched by a stick. Really
cool.





As I was walking though it did start to rain. I was
expecting it this time though and was fully prepared to walk in the rain. But
then it got heavier, and heavier, and there wasn’t really anywhere to shelter.
I know I’ve been complaining a lot about rain, but I think this time it was genuinely
unusually heavy because sections of the roadside were being washing onto the
road and on the return walk up, I found that a bit of hillside had collapsed
and was blocking half the road.





After a few minutes, I was soaked. To the point that I would
not have been more wet if I was actually swimming in water. My trousers were
really heavy and my shoes, despite being waterproof, had filled up with water.
I was near the bottom of the walk down to the waterfall when it got really
heavy and at the bottom was a small shelter where I could wait for the rain to
die down a bit. This however, was when I discovered a design flaw with my rain
mac in heavy rain. It has waterproof pockets in it where I transferred the
stuff out of my trouser pockets to keep them dry. However in very heavy rain,
the water funnels down my sides and a stream of water is funnelled into the
pockets which had filled up with water. There was one major casualty from this:
my phone. I turned it off and pulled out the battery and tried to dry as well
as possible when everything is wet and put it in a plastic bag to try and keep
it dry until I got back, although it wasn’t looking good.





I stayed in the shelter until the rain was just normal thunderstorm
low pressure shower strength rather than ridiculous high-pressure fire house strength
and had a quick look at the waterfall before heading back up. Although the slight
lull didn’t last for very long and it was soon heavy again and it was quite a
difficult walk back up because of all the water weight and the fact that I was
walking against the current on the road with a few centimetres of water at its
shallowest point. I made it back to the room absolutely soaked and once I had
wrung out my wet clothes I checked on the water damaged phone, but no luck. I’m
hoping that it dried out, but I think it might be dead. It’s not an expensive
phone and quite old, but it’s really annoying because I have everything set up
on it. Luckily though, because my phone was so old and occasionally unreliable
(although I doubt most phones would have coped with that water treatment) my
parents insisted I carry a spare phone, a fairly cheap phone but a smartphone
nonetheless, so that I could stay in contact. So although it’s not set up with
all my ebooks and podcasts and music and things, which is annoying, I do still
have a phone with a data connection which makes me feel much more secure when
travelling so I do have contact with the outside world if I have to. I’m still hoping
my proper phone dries out. It could be worse though, and that’s what travel is
about: turning dreams, both good and bad, into anecdotes. I really hope my shoes
dry out by tomorrow though.





I was going to go out spotlighting, but it’s still lightly
raining and it’s a bit annoying to spotlight in the rain and when everything’s
wet because all the water droplets are shiny like eyeshine. I’m quite tired
too. Tomorrow is my last full day here at Bukit Fraser and I’ve got the morning
of the day after too. I would have spent longer, but RM100 +RM10 tourism tax
per night is really steep. I have to remember that four nights is decent
though, and on a normal length trip it would be a good length of time.





Today also marks one week since I left Poland at the start
of this trip. Although there have been numerous annoyances and problems already
in just this week, I’m really enjoying the trip and I’m so pleased that I’ve
done it. I always knew there would be ups and downs and this trip is definitely
making me more self-sufficient. I was worried that at the end of the first week
I’d be wishing that the trip was shorter and would be wanting to go home soon,
but I’m not, and I’ve another 15 more weeks to go which I’m still just as
excited about.











New birds seen:





Little Cuckoo-dove





Slaty-backed Forktail





Malayan Laughingthrush





Rufous-browed Flycatcher





Barred Cuckoo-dove





Greater Yellownape





Blue-eared Barbet





Black-eared Shrike-babbler





Chestnut-crowned Warbler





Emerald Dove





Common Green Magpie





Javan Cuckooshrike





Black Eagle





Buff-breasted Babbler





Stripe-throated Bulbul











Mammal:





Hoary Bamboo Rat

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Comments

[Heather Kingham]

Proud of you!
Not sure you are getting my mail William. You sure are becoming a world traveler! Hope the weather is better tomorrow!

[Patricia Kingham]

leeches
William, put a sprinkle of table salt on the leech and it will just drop off you bleeding. Remember to rinse off the salt residue after the leech drops off.

[Jude West]

Following your blog with great interest. What an adventure. Enjoy!