National park

Dear travel journal,
It was another long but good day today. I skipped the sunrise today and had a couple more hours sleep. Then Kirsty and I got up and and joined everyone for breaky, who was already up because they watched the sunrise. At breaky we all said happy birthday to maria and Kirsty and Jason gave her cards from home and Callam gave her one he made that we all signed. Poor Kirsty is a bit fluey today so she kind of took her time earlier on. Then we got sorted and headed out to the boat. We were off to Tanjung datu national park. This is one of the smallest national parks in Borneo at only a couple of hundred hectares, and is bordering on the Indonesian boarder. The entrance was on the Tanjong (cape) side. At the national park entrance is a visitors center where we all had to sign in and we looked around at the information, especially about the turtle conservation project. There was also a ranger station, a small turtle hatchery and some areas just back from the sea front with covered eating areas, open sleeping areas and kitchenettes. After the visitors centre we walked through a section of the National park that was about 500m through on a forest path to a more enclosed beach on the Malaysian side of the point. The is called a Talko (bay) merlano. The water was awesome, white sandy beach and overhanging trees. We put all our stuff up under the trees and jumped in for a snorkel. We were looking for ikan badut or clownfish or nemos as Alvin was calling them. He wanted us to watch the enenomies and see how many we could count. I would have to say I saw at least 30 different ones. I also saw lots of other fish, lots of different coral and a sea snake. After snorkelling we headed back to the ranger station side of the beach to the covered areas, had a quick rinse and ate a tasty lunch the chief had brought for us from the homestay. A ginger cat came to join us for lunch who looked so much like cricket. Alvin said he has been around for at least 10 years and thinks that he is related to cricket. They are almost identical even in personality. The only difference being that this one had boofy cheeks, where as cricket has almost a Siamese face. He was very sweet and after Alvin gave him some left over chicken he had a sleep lay between Alvin and maria. After that we all had a couple of hours free time. I walked around the main area, checked out the hatchery and then walked the length of the beach. At the far end of the beach (towards Indonesia side) were lots of massive rocks were, so down I headed. On the way the tide started coming in but I saw a few holes where turtles had laid eggs and the rangers have collected them and moved them to the hatchery. The main turtle they get here are green turtles. Apparently if I had kept walking and gone behind the rocks there was a nice spot where a fresh water stream meets the ocean. After checking out the rocks a little I headed back down the beach. And then it just absolutely bucketed down. I got soaked and headed back to where we had lunch. We waited out the worst of the storm and headed back over to the other beach to the boat. The tide had completely come in and the beach was pretty much gone under the waves. Back in the Boat we headed out to telok milano village. In the village we sat at a little Cafe and ate anchovies and small nuts on what tasted kind of like corn chips, and super fishy flavoured prawn crackers. The drinks where your regular tea, coffee, coke and 100plus (isotonic drink) but we also tried an energy drink with ginsing (which apparently you can't buy in borneo) and a drink named ABC, which is crushed ice, strawberry sauce, jelly, green stuff and condensed milk - which actually didn't taste too bad. Then we went for a little walk through the village. We stopped at the Desalination plant. Which had been set up with donated money but they have none left for maintenance so they have no filters etc for the silo's. So it just sits unused. then we walked past the fanorama home stay which looks quite fancy. On the way we saw a monkey tied to a tree. Its an old tradition of the area that they have coconut picking macaques. He probably belongs to an older villager and once he passes the monkey will probably not be used anymore as its a dying out tradition. The owner of the home stay has been seen however, net fishing in the national park with Visitors, which is illegal. Hunting off the land is still allowed by people who live of the land (traditional hunters). They are allowed to do so, to get what they need to eat but they don't in specific aread for the turtles. We also visited the school, where Alvin and chief meenad have been doing loads of work for years. Part of our money is going to the school to buy a projector for conservation and alvins groups are going to help build a new undercover play area for the preschool where they are going to paint the wall and have a turtle conservation theme. We waited at the school for the rain to die down a little but it was not giving up, so back in the boat anyways and headed back to camp. First thing I did when we got back was jump in the shower and put dry cloths on. Then we sat around for afternoon tea, another type of sweet soup that I wasn't a huge fan of, so I just stuck to tea and biscuits and we all sat around chatting, and hanging balloons for Maria's birthday, while calam and Sam sat with fahmi drawing. And then maria, Kirsty and I stole the drawing book and took over a page when he was off at the smokers table. We were going to head into the village and have a look around but arrived back too late and then we were going to head back to the national park for a night walk but the weather was not great so we had a night in. After another Amazing meal (which the chief always sits with us and joins us, which is nice). We had meat and fish cooked over the open fire. After dinner we cleared up and then the chief came out with a cake for maria, which Alvin had brought while we were sorting our stuff at basaga. It was a super tasty chocolate brownie type cake with 1 candle in it. It opened lots of conversation about birthdays. Alvin's birthday is on the 25th June. We also learnt the Malay, "Bela jari jadi parmi - when is your birthday? ". After cake we sat down with the local ladies and they helped us make necklaces and a couple of people made bracelets from shells. We all sat around chatting, drinking tea and coffee while playing with the shells. Then we all got sorted for bed and said good night.Read more