To the Crocker Range!

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(I notice that at my end at least, there's an odd block of formatting text where each paragraph break should be on this post and the last. That's not from my end but is something wrong with Travelblog. Hopefully it fixes itself because there's not really anything I can do about it.)



I started as early as I reasonably could with breakfast at the restaurant at 7:30 when it opened and then got my stuff and went to wait for a bus. There isn't actually a bus stop or timetable at Mount Kinabalu so getting out involves standing by the side of the road and waving at anything that looks like it might be public transport. I was on the road just after 8 and I got a minibus to stop for me just before 9:30. This was actually the second minibus to stop, the first one though was not public transport but a minibus being used by a group of high school students on a field trip who all decided for some bizarre reason that they wanted selfies with me. Is it normal to see someone in a camo shirt with binoculars on a harness around your neck and a big backpack trying to wave down a minibus?


Anyway, less than an hour and a half of waiting isn't bad I think, especially early in the morning (most of the transport going to KK is coming from Sandakan so must have left about four hours earlier). It's lucky I'm a solo traveler because there was only a single seat left on the minibus. I'm pleased that I left early too because the mist and cloud hadn't fully come in yet and there were stunning views on the mountain roads. Some of the driver's overtaking manoeuvres in the narrow, windy, lorry-filled, mountain roads though... Jeez how is he still alive?


Unlike in the lowlands, quite a lot of the initial part of the route at least is still natural Montane forest as far as the eye can see rather than plantations because of course it's too cold to grow oil palm at such high altitudes. The main threat to this environment is of course climate change.


The drive back to KK took about two hours and the minibus came in right next two another minibus for with Keningau-KK written on it which is just where I wanted to go (the Crocker Range HQ is about 15km before Keningau) and the driver said he could drop me off at Taman Negara Banjaran Crocker (=Crocker Range National Park) on the way. However this minibus is th sort that Ieaves once it's full, however long that takes, and I was only the second person on it, but it wasn't a particularly long wait, and we left after about an hour. For some reason I had expected it to be a big bus, but small minibuses are better for the return journey where I'll just be flagging one down at the roadside again and a small minibus every hour or so is going to make that much easier than a few big buses per day.


The minibus dropped me off at the park office which is about 4km from the accommodation (which is still within the work, just not right by the entrance). The accommodation here used to be run by Sabah Parks, but it's now the Manis Manis Rooftop Resort of Borneo and they're using the same buildings as the former accommodation, but they've fancied it up. Luckily they had a promotion and the dorm was only RM37 per night (though being a proper hotel means they charge the RM10 tourism tax too which the less formal places don't) and given how empty the place is, the promotion is probably in their best interest. I think I might be the only person staying here right now.


Of course being a mid-level fanciness resort, the restaurant is a bit pricy but it's not insane, maybe 50% more than a normal local restaurant which is ok for a short two-night stay. The view from the restaurant is stunning too but the most stunning thing about the view is a pair of Bornean Falconets that hang out on a dead tree visible from the decking! They really are super teeny tiny up close (world's smallest bird of prey) and when they catch an insect they get mobbed by little passerines!


It's about 1000m altitude here so hill forest rather than montane as the field guide refers to it, and you can tell by the wildlife too because the primary squirrel species here is Plantain and I am again seeing the bird species which I had seen every day on this trip apart from Mt Kinabalu which was Oriental Magpie Robin. Bornean Ibons (called Pygmy White-eyes by everyone except my rather 'special' Philipps Field Guide. But I rather like the sound of the word Ibon), one of the hill birds that I was looking for here, seem quite common even in the vegetation on the edge of lawns.


The advantage of being a fancy resort though is that when I arrived, I called them and they sent a man and a car around to come and pick me up. How good is that?


The forest here is more like lowland but it's not as big as primary lowland forest and there are more pine-like trees and ferns and bamboos and things.


Unfortunately this afternoon was rather rainy. But I had a bit of an explore nonetheless and there are a couple of trails here, the longest being the Crocker Nature Trail at 2.2km, which I will be birding thoroughly tomorrow, hopefully in the dry. There's a Rafflesia plot marked on the map too which I'll have to check out tomorrow. It's quite birdy around generally though and I'm not sure why it isn't higher on the birding radar. The bird guide at Kinabalu yesterday said the same thing and said that this area is interesting because it has the hill species that you would expect from that altitude but it's quite moist forest so you get many lowland birds too. This seems to be the case because today I saw both Bornean Ibon, a hill bird, and Asian Fairy Bluebird, a generally more lowland and lower levels of hills bird. Both Sunda Bush Warbler and White-breasted Waterhen are very common, at the bottom and top of their altitudinal ranges respectively. I like it here! Birdy, a nice range of species, with easy access to trails right from the accommodation without long walks or any walking along roads, and an empty dorm at a nice resort for backpacker prices! I don't need posh bed linen or a newly done up toilet or a fancy decking area to be comfortable and I don't miss it in the slightest when I don't have it, but I do appreciate it when I do. I should clarify. This place isn't like Hilton/Sheriton posh, not at all. It's the sort of place I would have though was decent prior to this trip, it's mostly that my standards have dropped and it's much nicer than an RM37 dorm would suggest.


Despite the constant rain throughout the afternoon, I birded the trail anyway, and I got a number of nice birds with the real jackpot bird being an unexpected flyby in the forest of a Cinnamon-rumped Trogon which is rather a tricky bird that I wasn't expecting here! Most birders go to a different part of the Crocker Range (which is a huge place, apparently the largest terrestrial park in Sabah) at a place called Rafflesia Centre near Tambunan, but the Keningau side where I am seems really good. The leeches worse than Danum though. I'll be getting out the socks tomorrow.


The view from the restaurant at dinner was rather different. Rather than being dominated by the forested mountains all around, it was a view of the lights at night of Keningau 20 minutes down the road from here (literally down - I'm on mountain looking down to Keningau in the valley). Still pretty, but in a very different way. What wasn't pretty was the aftermath of a forest jam packed with leeches on someone totally not expecting them. I removed about 300 million leeches from all over my body from ankles to wrists to neck (actually about 30 leeches, but for leeches that's a lot!) and I looked rather like I had been swimming in broken glass. The guy at reception says it's been raining a lot lately and there's normally only a few leeches. I got most of the leeches off, but found a few more in the shower and had to remove another lot after spotlighting. I also found several inside my shoes and even inside my socks that had drunk their fill of blood and fallen off but got stuck. Poor little things. They're almost cute when they're all big and fat and crawling away from you. (Except of course for the fact that that's my blood and I need it).


It was still raining lightly after dinner, but with only two nights here and such an easy track to get to, I decided to go spotlighting. I hadn't heard from anyone who had been spotlighting here, but you never know! There were some extremely shy and skittish Sambar around at the forest edge and in the forest there were loads of frogs. I also saw a really cool looking armoured larva of some kind with a bioluminescent back end and rather excitingly a smallish flying squirrel, though I can't identify it to species. There were quite a few rodents too and it's like I was saying yesterday, I can't find snakes at night but I can find rats. So I guess that basically makes me a snake? Anyway, there were Long-tailed Giant Rats as well as quite a few of the endemic Large Pencil-tailed Tree Mouse around (the same species as in my room at Sepilok all those weeks ago). I think this must be a particularly good spot for the latter species. I also got a new rodent which I am pretty sure must have been a Rajah Spiny Rat (Maxomys). It's very difficult to be 100% sure when it comes to small rodent identification when you just see one walk across a path without having it in the hand but based on appearance, behaviour, and location, that species fits much better than anything else so I'm going to count it.


And if a pair of trousers is quite clean in terms of not being smelly at all but is just plastered with mud and soaked with your own blood, can you wear them for a second day? Hmm...

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