Welcome (back) To The Jungle!

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The last few days have been absolutely incredible. Firstly we made the half-day bus journey to Sepilok Orang Utan Sacntuary, where we were able to watch a family of Orang-utans at feeding time. They were adorable and such show offs! Including tight rope walking, hanging upside down, using buckets as helmets and more. Really amazing. Following this was an interesting video about the efforts of the sanctuary. And although generally Sepilok is meant to be FULL of people (even a few days before we went) we must've just hit the post holiday lull as it worked out cheaper, and there were only 20 people there - as opposed to the norm of a hundred or two. A night at the lodge just round the corner, then the next day we made our way over to the Sungai Kinabatangan, or Kinabatangan river, for our 3 day 2 night stay on the river bank in the so called 'Amazon of Borneo'.

This included 2 evening river cruises, 2 early morning (6am!) river cruises, 2 night treks and one day trek - all in the search for wildlife.
These few days have been such a great experience. Half the fun was simply trying to spot the animals, and luckily we were able to see a whole host of wild animals from insects, right up to a massive male Orang-utan (really rare) and even a crocodile! (also plenty of long and pig tailed Macaques, Proboscis Monkeys, Monitor Lizards and a variety of birds including Kingfishers and Hornbills).
We got to know the other people in our group of 13 pretty well and had the same excellent guide throughout - Captain Helson.

We left after our final river cruise this morning and are now in Sabah and have already booked our next trip - over to Turtle Island tomorrow for some snorkelling and then watching a mother laying her eggs on the sand before moving the eggs to the hatchery and then watching some baby turtles as they are released back into the sea for the first time (hopefully!) which we are really excited for. The day after that we hope to visit the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary for a closer look at our big nosed relatives before our flight from KK to Kuching on the 12th.

I'll try and add some photos now but am not sure how wel it'll go. Also 4 days on and I think we're over the little blip on our otherwise perfect trip. We still have the photos on Emily's camera, plus friends' ones from Thailand, and our health!

So if we don't talk to you beforehand, speak to you from Kuching!

And we hope that you little people enjoy your first days at school!

bye bye for now x

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