Climbing Mount Kinabalu

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Day 7 Off to Kota Kinabalu

Today we got a bit of a lie in before we left Sepilok to catch a flight from Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu. We booked into an extremely nice boutique hotel called Eden 54. Extremely nice and Ling Ling on the reception couldn’t be more helpful.

Kota Kinabalu is a really nice place. Very modern, with a distinctly colonial feel. But on the sea front there is a huge fish market, fruit and veg market and a large barbeque area where you can eat wonderful fish barbequed in front of you.

Day 8

Today we went out to a little island off the coast of Kota Kinabalu by speed boat for Stuart to go Scuba diving, He did 3 dives but he said that the water wasn’t as clear as he had hoped. But he did he a huge octopus and swam through a huge scholl of barracuda. It was a lovely relaxed day. I just sat on the beach for a while contemplating the days ahead.

Day 9 Climbing Mount Kinabalu

Today is the day! We have small packs of essentials and clean, warm clothing ready for our climb to 4,095 metres of Mount Kinabalu - the highest peak in Asia. The minibus came to pick us up at 8am and we were off on the 2 hour journey up to the start of our climb at the National Park. I must admit that I was feeling trepidation at the thought of the climb. It was my stupid idea after all and Stuart was just going along with it!

The peak was shrouded in cloud, but the weather was dry as we waited for our guide to finalise and register us for the climb. His name was Porinus, and when he smiled he had very few teeth left! But he seemed very nice although his English was poor.

We finally got started at 11am, just as the heavens opened. And did they open! Imagine the heaviest rainstorm in England and times by ten! The rocky paths were running like rivers in no time at all. The climb starts at 1800 metres and we would finish day one at Laban Rata at 3,300 metres. The first days climb would have us cover 6 kilometres and 1500 metres vertical. I didn’t think that sounded too bad, but Stuart reminded me that it would be like a 1:3 hill all the way!

The climb was relentless. The beginning took us up a mixture of natural rocky steps and some man made steps but at about half way the route started to get considerably harder. Now all natural rocks to climb, it was relentless and we were stopping regularly to recover our breath. Let’s say it was the longest 5 hours of my life - well perhaps with the exception of having a baby!

Anyway, after 5 hours continual climbing we saw Laban Rata where we would be staying for the night. A wave of emotion hit me as I saw the rest of the climb towering up above us and I remember saying to Stuart that I didn’t think that I could do it.

We registered at the hostel - that’s the only way I can describe it really. You share a room with two other people who had got there before us and nicked the best bunks! We emptied our packs to find pretty much everything soaked so we rang it all out and hung it all up in the vain hope that it would dry before our climb. At this point I was feeling very dispondant and wondering what the hell we were doing here. I have no idea what Stuart was thinking - he had just come along because I wanted to climb the mountain!

We discovered fairly quickly that there was in fact no hot water or heating at the hostel! Great! I didn’t expect the Ritz, but I had expected a hot shower! So after a quick wash and brush up, and still in wet trousers we went downstairs for warm drinks and supper. It was a bit of a “bun fight” at dinner time with more climbers than chairs to sit on and some tempers were getting a bit frayed!

We met our guide after supper and explained to him that all our clothes were wet. He very kindly said that he would dry them for us - 15 ringits for his trouble! So we sent him packing with some strategic bits of underwear and hoped for the best. Eventually he returned with our dry clothes so at about 8pm we retired to our bunks to get some shut eye before our 2am ascent!

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