Gunung Gading NP - Home of the Rafflesia, waterfalls, a couple of mountains and all the usual creepy crawlies to boot

---

By the time I came back from Bako I was now travelling with two new people I met there - Fran and Emma. I was also finally feeling like I could cope with the ridiculous heat and humidity here.

While I'm on the subject of weather - thunderstorms are awesome.

I spent three days 2 nights at this national park which is normally only visited by day trippers who come to see the giant rafflesia flowers (the largest flowers in the world). The flowers are a parasite - the flower, which is the whole plant, grows off the roots of other plants on the ground. They grow up to a meter in diameter, stink of rotting flesh to attract flies, flower at unpredictable times and only last for 4/5days. We just missed one when we turned up but did find a bud while exploring through the undergrowth at one point.

Because there was no flowers in bloom while we were there it meant that the park was really quiet and we only saw/met a handful of malaysians who had come to the park for a short trip. As with the other national parks I visited here the facilities were excellent and great value for money. Because of the low influx of people at this park there is no restaurant but we had a fully equiped kitchen to play with so that was fun. The days were spent taking short walks to some of the many waterfalls they have here and the evenings were spent doing the usual - drinking cheap Tuak or other spirits, chatting, listening to music and playing cards. The park is beautiful and has some great shortish treks so is well worth more time than the day trip that most people give it.

Just after I got back from the park and started reading through my emails I found that I suddenly had a definate team for the rafting - with one guy flying over from Singapore! - but then read on to find that the whole event had been postponed until June! Gutted. I later found out though that it had been postponed because a local man died in the rough rapids further up stream so maybe it was for the best as we would have been using a home made bamboo raft and had no previous experience...

After spending one more night in Kuching and getting myself re-organised I said goodbye to Emma and Fran and tried to head off to meet Graeme who had now made plans to go to a place called Bario.

---

Photos

High flyer
The pool was plenty deep enough to have some fun jumping off the walls!

Open sesamy?
This bud is a close as we got to seeing a Rafflesia in flower - They open randomly throughout the year here and only last 4-5days

Preying mantis
There was a truly huge one that landed on our balcony at one point but it was gone before I could get a pic of it

Aphid..?
Although shy at first once bugs like this latch onto you they'er hard to get rid of

left right left right
Doesn't quite work with... one, two, three... that many legs.

What the hell?
I have no idea what this would class as.

Popular
Ok so I did put them there in the first place but they just wouldn't leave!!

What would happen if I touched...
Best not

Fungus
This is the stuff that glows in the dark... I think.

Waterfall No.1
There are seven in the park and though we only spent time at 2 of them they were both great places for swimming

Evenings
Me, Fran and Kelly. In between catching the crazy bugs that kept splatting into our light on the porch we played cards and drank rice wine or whisky.