Mamutik Island

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Another hectic, fun filled day laid ahead. Jane had certainly gone to town on this trip and made sure every day was as manic as the last! The alarm was set once again for another early morning wake up, followed by brekkie at Fook Yeun. With great sadness this was to be our last meal at our favourite (well, cheap!) restaurant. We only had half a day left in KK as we were going to be boarding a flight at 2:50pm for Singapore. We decided to spend the last half day going to the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park, a group of 5 islands located between 3 to 8 km off Kota Kinabalu. The park is spread over 4,929 hectares, two thirds of which cover the sea. Before the Ice Age, it formed part of the Crocker Range mass of sandstone and sedimentary rock on the mainland. However, about one million years ago, the melting ice brought about changes in the sea level and parts of the mainland were cut off by the sea to form the islands of Gaya Island, Sapi Island, Manukan Island, Mamutik Island and Sulug Island. All are only 10 - 20 minute speedboat ride from the city of Kota Kinabalu. The five islands of the Marine Park are characterized by shallow waters, sumptuous coral gardens and all boast splendid white sandy beaches. We arrived at Jessleton harbour, a jetty at the edge of the city centre, where the boats leave from at 7:30am. There were numerous ticket kiosks all with different company names. All of the ticket sellers were screaming over each other to get the customers to buy tickets from their stand. We enquired at some of kiosks about which Island had the best snorkelling. All of the tour operators advised us to go to either Sapi or Mamutik. We had reallly wanted to go to two islands but as we didn't have much time we settled on the smallest one, Mamutik Island. We had been wrongly informed by the flyer that we had picked up at the tourist inforamtion centre that the boats departed at 8:00am. Unfortunately none of the operators were leaving until 8:30am and the boat trip would be approx 15-20 minutes. Ange waited on the jetty whilst Jane went back into town to pick up some snacks to take to the Island, any excuse not to have to sit and wait! The boat left on time at 8:30am and before we knew it we were at the Island. We had done some research (Lonely Planet) and decided to try and find the area it had suggested for snorkelling. We found the track but it seemed to be blocked off. Jane, not being detered by this, chose for us to climb over a few rocks which then met with the track. We climbed up a steep embankment and back down the other side to where the guide book had suggested to go snorkelling, only to be faced with many rocks that needed to be climbed over to get to the sea and a sign saying "no snorkelling"! Reluctantly Jane gave up on the idea that "we might be able to snorkle here" and we started to head back towards the beach. Jane being Jane, wanted to do some exploring of the island and decided to take a different track back. The track took us along the top of the island, an area that was completey infested with mosquitos. Probably not the wisest choice of track ever made, panicking we set about trying to find the quickest way out of there. Hurrying and stumbling our way along we came across a massive monitor lizard! This made us even more panic struck and the sooner we were off this island or by the beach the better!! The track we were on took us to the back of the island where we were once again faced by many rocks and no beach!! This was starting to turn into a nightmare, so we stopped for a minute, caught our breathe and decided to head back in the original direction towards the beach. Eventually we found our way back to the beach were the boat had landed. That was it for today, there would be no more exploring, just sitting on the beach, relaxing and snorkelling in the correct area! The snorkelling was ok, nothing too special but we were glad that we had made it to another Island. At 11:45am it was time for us to pack up our bags and get ready for the 12pm boat ride back to KK. At 12:10pm we were still waiting for the boat to arrive, trying not to panic too much, as we had a flight to catch. The boat eventually arrived, we had a speedy trip back to KK, collected our belongings from Hotel Eden 54 and made our way via taxi to the airport. Sat at the airport we reflected on our amazing trip to Sabah, Borneo. We had had a fantastic time, met some lovely people, visited some wonderful sights, seen gorgeous scenery and many different animals. We were both sad to be leaving Borneo, but vowed to return at another time to visit Sarawak, the other half to Borneo. At 2:15pm we boarded the Air Asia flight to Singapore, so it was definitely now time to say, goodbye Sabah and thanks for having us.

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