Day 262 July 28th 2007, Jungle Buglies - Sepilok to Kinabatangan River


Catching a taxi south to our next destination saved us the hassle of a 3 hour mini bus and then bus journey. The saved time allowed us to once again visit the Orang Utan sanctuary and see the morning feeding. Arriving after about an hour at a roadside cafe we meet with our jungle tour guide and the rest of the guests who would be sharing the lodge with us over the next couple of days. Another hour in a mini bus and we arrived on the shore of the Kingabatangan River. Above: The lodge as seen from the river.


The river with its muddy brown water flowed slowly passed and as we crossed by boat, giant logs and up rooted trees drifted past like large crocodiles. We had gone for the budget option for our jungle visit, this meant our hut on stilts had plenty of ventilation, the shower room especially. With the edge of the jungle only a few meters away the air was always filled with the sound of insects and birds.


The lodge itself has a 5,000 volt perimeter fence to keep out the pygmy elephants. From what I could gather from one of the guides a heard had been through here before the fence and caused havoc. The guide was particularly wary of the elephants "if you wrong them, they will get you, maybe even generations later, they remember you"

Early evening we set off on our boat trip, no sooner had we set off the rain started and after a few minutes I might as well have gone for a swim in the river fully clothed. It was worth it though as a few minutes later we saw a large male Ornag Utan in one of the trees, close to the river bank. From his size he was about 20 years old, a rare and lucky sighting. Being dusk there were plenty of other monkeys around including the very strange looking Proboscis Monkey. The clip below is from the website just linked to and the photo is from wikipedia.

Following dinner we set off into the jungle for a short night time hike, we didn't quite see the variety of insects we saw in Peru, but our guide did manage to find a very impressive scorpion and the bugs I photographed below are quite interesting, the look a bit like wizards with a cape and hat.


Highlights: I always like being in the jungle and seeing the wild Orang Utan was very exciting