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Published: October 23rd 2015
Last night was my first night staying at the Sepilok Nature Reserve, I went to bed quite early because I was worn out after the last few days. As the hotel is on the edge of the rainforest it gets pretty noisy at night, I just didn't realise just how noisy it can be! It took me ages to get to sleep and then I was woken by thunder a couple of hours later! The weather calmed down and the weird and wonderful noises of the rain forest returned.
Today I had a free day with no plans really. I had a late(ish) breakfast, got ready and walked to the Rainforest Discovery Centre which is about 20 mins down the road from the Sepilok Nature Resort. I paid for my ticket when I arrived, it was 15MYR which is circa £3, I was given a map and I went on my way.
The Rainforest Discovery Centre is a centre for environmental education situated within the famous Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve. Its primary function is to create public awareness and appreciation of the importance of conserving forests, as well as the sustainable use of forest resources. There are a number of
trails marked on the map and also a couple of canopy walks. I thought I'd do a canopy walk first, so I went up the steel ramp to the top. You really start to get a sense of the sheer size of the rainforest from the towers placed along the way and you can see for miles when you get to the top, the first one is 56ft above the ground and the second one even higher.
Once I'd come down from the dizzy heights of the canopy, I decided to have a wander down some of the trails. As soon as I started on the first trail I saw a squirrel, it was really low to the ground and still. I was just too slow to get a photo unfortunately. A little further down the trail I saw the biggest hairiest caterpillar I've ever seen in my life on one of the fences. As I continued down the trail the tree coverage started to get heavier and heavier, it really felt like the rainforest trek I'd done a few days ago, but now I was on my own and I'd not seen another person in quite a while!
I stayed as quiet as I could in an effort to not scare off the wildlife that may be hidden in the trees...
After about 25 minutes of following the trail (aiming to get to the giant tree at the back) I heard a noise in the trees to my left. I stopped and stood as still and quiet as I could, as I looked round to where the noise had come from I saw the tree branches shaking and then I saw a large pig tailed macaque walking a little ahead of me to my left, he climbed up a tree on the trail I was walking, he then started calling out and there was more rustling of trees to my left. I froze not wanting to spook him and also wondering what the best thing to do was!
He then jumped across to another tree with no branches on the lower half of the trunk and I could clearly see him. I took a couple of photos and then he spotted me! He just stared at me with total concentration. I took a couple of steps back, still facing him and he came down out of
the tree and started to head in my direction. A bit panicked by this point, I took a few more steps backwards and he continued to follow me. I did the only thing I could do in this situation - I turned round and legged it! When I set of running I looked over my shoulder and he was still heading my way. I went back down that trail faster than I've moved in a long time and the 25 minutes it took me to get there took about 10 to get back!!
When I got to the end of the trail, I sat down and thanked my lucky stars I came away unscathed. When I got back to my hotel, I found I did the right thing by getting out of there sharpish as they can be really aggressive.
I pottered around a little more and spotted a few more animals, mainly birds - the clearest view was of a woodpecker quite low down on the tree trunk. I walked a couple of the smaller trails and went over a suspension bridge over the lake, it was very picturesque.
As it was getting towards lunchtime and
getting hotter I set off on my walk back to my hotel and swapped my walking boots for flip flops when I got back and crashed out on the decking over the lake next to the bar and made a quick phone call to home. All was well, and then the heavens opened, it was a massive downpour for about 20 mins. It's stopped raining now but I'm still sat under the shelter in case it starts again. As I'm off to see the orangutan and sun bears tomorrow, there's not much for me to do round here for the rest of the day apart from chilling out with a book and a coffee I think.
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Arthur Kinder
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All that is needed is Ant and Dec and a million to cameras