Advertisement
Published: April 10th 2007
Edit Blog Post
we arrived in kota kinabalu (KK) in the early hours of the morning as we had traveled throughout the night on a bus from Simporna, luckily there weren’t many passengers on the bus so I got the prime spot at the back to lie across four empty seats, it was freezing with the air con blowing so I grabbed my sleeping bag from the boot and slept the whole journey. I only rolled off the seat once when the bus had to break suddenly. Apart from that it was a goodnights sleep.
We stayed in KK for a week, while we were there we didn’t really get up to anything exciting, watched some DVD’s James got a bit of a fever so I played nurse for a couple of days, there was a market on Sunday and I left James in bed and went for a browse around.
I bought some gifts and came across a stall selling animals!!!!! There were kittens in tiny little cages, they sold mice fish and dogs too, but there was once little pussy I felt particularly sorry for, it was a hot morning and the stall opposite was blaring out the most awful
sound "music”, so I bought the kitten, told them to keep their cage and sneaked him back into the guest house as a gift for James to cheer him up.
The majority of the cats here don’t own tails like the cats we have in England they maybe have 1inch if their lucky. He was small and ginger we called him Lance and he lived in a Starbucks paper bag for the few hours we had him. I had to give him away as I couldn’t feed him (he didn’t like milk and cereal for some reason.) so a lucky builder on the street got him.
We left KK and headed for the national park which is the home of Mount Kinabalu; we stayed in a nice hostel for 2pounds per night, met some people, made a log fire and sat around playing card games.
It was considerably freezing up on the hills in the park around 18degrees, the clouds drifted low during the evening which made the atmosphere very damp.
James was urging me to climb the mountain, and it wasn’t until a few people had told me their experiences of the climb that I even contemplated doing such
a thing. James climbed the mountain two years since and wasn’t keen on doing the whole thing again.
I bought a balaclava from the local store and gathered together as many warm clothes as I could find (which was really difficult at I only had a thin fleece and some leggings) I borrowed James socks and long sleeved tops.
I headed for the reception and added my name to the waiting list to climb the mountain!!!! That night the receptionist informed me that there had been a cancellation and would I like to climb? I just couldn’t refuse an offer like that so I took it.
21st April I woke at 6.15am got packed up and headed for breakfast, I met with a Canadian couple that said I could join them on the climb, and they were middle aged really lovely and very fit!!!
I said good bye to James as I got on the bus that took us to the base of the 4100metre beast of a hill (the Kinabalu Mountain).
The climb was tough, but I watched in utter amazement as local porters carried 20kg packs of supplies up this steep terrain, old ladies and young boys
Large moth
Ever evening on the walls underneath the lights at the hostel, there was a live gallery of flying insects. 100's of different species incredibly unique looking. stumbled quickly upwards to reach the accommodation house nearly 4miles uphill!!!!! The worse this was once they have delivered their goods they return back down the hill (which I later found to be worse than climbing it) to start all over again the next day!! What a terrible job.
I listened to music on my mp3 and powered ahead of my group reaching the accommodation in 3hours 45minutes. I passed lots of people struggling up the rocks, but I had two sticks that helped me a great deal, but killed my arm muscles the day after.
Once I reached the accommodation I was exhausted and cold, only 10degrees here and quite cloudy. I sat and drank some hot water; still freezing I hired a coat and a sleeping bag. Removed my sweaty top and wrapped up. Sat in the restaurant and waited for my group that turned up 1 hour later. I headed for my accommodation which was 5 minutes further up the mountain. Once there I slept as we were to be up at 2am to begin our climb to the summit in time to see the sun rise. The girls in my room were quite noisy, the girl
A carnivorous Pitcher plant
I saw these cool plants on my way up the mountain.
The trap contains a fluid of the plant's own production, which may be watery or syrupy and is used to drown the prey. The lower part of the trap contains glands which absorb nutrients from captured prey. Along the upper inside part of the trap is a slick waxy coating which makes the escape of its prey nearly impossible.Above the peristome is a lid this keeps rain from diluting the fluid within the pitcher. below me must have had 100 carrier bags, the ones that make a really loud crispy crunching ear piercing sound. She insisted on moving them constantly. I made myself some ear plugs using tissue and water and buried my head beneath the blanket to warm myself up.
1am the girls below me woke and began to rustle around with there blessed bags again, turning the lights on and beginning to wrap up warm. I couldn’t sleep after this so I got ready wearing everything I had brought with me, pulling on my cotton raggy boots; I headed for the kitchen to boil some water for my noodles.
Every one was wandering around wearing professional looking gear warm coats, cozy hats and gloves, while I was stood in my raggy boots, leggings, denim mini skirt and a fleece, people stared at me as though I was mad, well which I was in those conditions but I really didn’t have a choice, my backpack weighs 18kg which is too heavy already and I have only packed a few clothes suitable for a hot beach, shorts and strappy tops. I had never planned to be in such an environment (apart from when I
land back in the UK).
We climbed some steep steps up the mountain; we still had another miles and a half to go. I looked above me and the sky was completely full of stars like I have never seen before, just incredible.
We began to climb the rocky slopes of the summit using a rope, I looked around and down I could see distant tiny lights of the towns surrounding us so far below. It began to get windy and very cold, I was getting tired and I knew we still had ages to go. Our guide showed us to a pile of rocks along the trail we used as a wind break we huddled together as it was so cold, my hands were going numb, I didn’t have any gloves I was using James socks on my hands.
We began to climb large rocks to the peak. I could see the light in the distance; I made it to the top utterly exhausted and completely numb. I sat and watched as the sun began to rise. Unfortunately the clouds below were in the way but it was still beautiful, especially to see the views surrounding us below.
The journey down was the worst, it really gets to you knee joints. It took 4 and a half hour to reach the bottom and that was at a good pace, my legs became weak and wobbled like jelly.
I recorded a diary on my video camera so I shall try to add it onto this blog.
My legs took 2 days to recover, but my arm still hurts a lot from using my sticks.
Overall I gained a certificate and an amazing view of just what it feels like to be sat on top of the world.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.154s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0972s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Orion
non-member comment
unbelievable
Wow Cherie, thanks again for sharing. Sounds like the experience of a lifetime! How did you ever find all these places to go? I'm so envious. Hope to see you stateside when you get over there. Keep up the good work! x