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Published: August 10th 2011
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Up at 7am for breakfast - minus Inger who was not fully enjoying the jungle experience - before Mr Aji, Charles and I headed off for a morning trek. Elizabeth decided to stay behind and read, for a change. The walk was less than eventful unfortunately. Some black squirrels, few varieties of birds and a bug that rolls itself into a perfect, solid ball when it is frightened were all that we managed to find. I managed to finally lose my sunglasses on that walk too so, all in all, not the most perfect morning trek but nevermind.
Back at the lodge for a few hours of nothingness and lunch. Liz continued to read, laughing away to herself at her latest book.
Once 14:30 arrived, we set off down river again, this time going the other way to avoid all the other boats. More of the same for a while, Probiscus monkeys, crocodiles, fish eagles, Oriental Pied Hornbills and Macaques.
As a slight rain shower began to fall, we headed up a tributary of the Kinabatangan and found a sleeping python, much to Charles's excitement. About 20 minutes later, the temperature had finally started to drop and the
rain shower was easing off. These two things combined to spark the Proboscis monkeys into action and we sat, in the boat, underneath a basic rope bridge watching them crossing the river to the fruiting trees on the other bank. A good two dozen monkeys made the journey, the large males going first, with one of them then trying to hold the ropes apart so that all the other crossing females and young ones weren't twisting around all the time. The ropes had managed to get crossed at a point towards the far side of the river and it was funny (and slightly tense) watching the young mothers - with little ones clinging to their stomachs - attempting to navigate that point, shouting back at the males who, you sensed, were telling them to get a move on.
Once the family were safely across we headed back out to the Kinabatangan and back up stream to the lodge. On the way we stopped to sit and listen to the jungle sounds (and came across a poor bloke just trying to have a peaceful wash in the river). We heard a Myna bird (the one that can imitate any sound)
going through its own mini repertoire (it had obviously not heard many human-based noises as it was just mimicking birds and monkeys) and we also saw a Wrinkled Hornbill - one of the rarer kinds according to a very excitable Mr Aji.
Back at the lodge for a shower and food before Inger, Charles, Aji and I went for another night cruise to see if we could finally find some other animals - I doubt you'll be able to guess what Lizzie stayed and did. After the usual kingfishers, owls and sleeping monkeys we found a python on the hunt. It was about 3 metres in length and had everyone in the area very excited - just a shame we didn't see it catch anything. Still, Charles had a very, very satisfied look on his face at finally seeing a wild python on the move.
On the way back to the lodge we figured that was going to be it until the driver of our little boat suddenly slammed it into reverse and said something in Malay to Mr Aji that - as ever - got the man very giddy. We pulled up to the river bank and
they were shining their lights into the jungle quietly shouting at us to "look, look!". Could we see anything?
Could we bollocks.
But then, as the driver waved the light around a bit we saw two small, bright balls of light shining back at us. The eyes of a cat. As our eyes adjusted to the landscape we could clearly see the cat. Dark brown in colour and larger than the average domestic cat. It sadly wasn't big enough to be a clouded leopard.
Mr Aji creeped quicker than anyone has ever creeped to the front of the boat with his camera and jumped onto the riverbank, crouching and moving ever closer to the cat. In his whirl of excitement he hadn't said anything other than "look!" and "cat!" at us but the driver then told us that it was a Leopard Cat. "Very rare." he said. We watched the cat bobbing around, watching us whilst we watched it. Mr Aji came back with a substantial smile across his face and almost managed to slip into the river - not that he would've cared since he was that childlike in his joy he would probably have started
paddling away.
Most of the time the whole experience feels like you are just along for the ride. It's like you've paid to join a nature enthusiast on one of his thousands of trips into the jungle. Mr Aji gets more excitement and enjoyment out of it than any of us possibly can - no matter how many times he's seen it all. Even if there was no one there who has paid to see these things, you can envisage him stalking around the riverbank looking for things to photograph. I suppose his passion for everything wild makes the trip all the more interesting. He may be there as your guide but he's also there as someone who has such an in depth desire to be there himself, he'd probably talk and mimic animals just as much to an empty boat as he did to us. The fact that we paid our money for the night cruises direct to the boat driver and Mr Aji took nothing probably tells you all you need to know about the man really.
The ability of Mr Aji and the driver to see the animals like they do is beyond comprehension at
times. How on earth you can see a cat, even with such reflective eyes, that is 30 metres away in the jungle, on a boat that is travelling at 8-10 knots is utterly mind boggling. Still, we weren't complaining. No clouded leopards or pygmy elephants (we missed them by a day we were told) unfortunately but, with thanks to the eyes of our driver and Mr Aji, we saw a few other rare animals that not many others could have seen. I mean have you ever seen a wild blue chicken?
So, just a quick interlude to say thank you for all your efforts Mr Aji, you certainly made the whole experience much greater than that which appeared to be being had by the hoards of package holiday tourists in their 24 seater boats and we hope that, one day, we will be able to use that 10% off coupon you gave us for our next visit to the jungle.
All the while during this night cruise the sky was constantly (i.e. every 2 seconds) being completely illuminated by ginormous flashes of lighting that were shocking their host clouds into an endless variety of glorious patterns and formations
depending on where the bolt was being created. There were 4 storms going on all around us so the night would light up from different angles all the time. The sky above our heads was almost obsidian black, with stars sprinkled and sparking like crystals, something you really cannot see back in the cities of England. The moon, when it appeared, was so bright that it was almost painful on the eyes to look at. At times it felt as though you didn't need the torches when there was such a luminous object beaming down on us.
Anyway, surrounded by lightning storms which both Charles and I were attempting to photgraph (we both failed) we headed back down river to the lodge for bed.
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Dad
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Another great blog
Keep it up. we wait for the next blog !! Watch the bugs !!