Sungai Menungal

We were picked up at our nature lodge by our new guide and taken to the Sandakan harbour where we boarded a speedboat with about ten other people. The trip took about three hours of pretty fast sailing. We did experience a couple of heavy showers along the way, so we all got a bit damp - the boat had a roof, but was open at the sides.

Along the way the guides got very excited as we saw their version of the ‘ big five’ - Pygmy elephants ( which max out at 2.3 mtrs tall) , a wild orangutan sitting in a fig tree having a great feast on the fruit. Once it started raining heavily again, we watched him cover himself with branches and even break off a branch that had a good leaf cover and use it as an umbrella. We also saw proboscis monkeys, a crocodile and a rhinoceros hornbill. The boat ride was great as we really felt we were in the deep jungle - mangroves and lots of thick bush.

We arrived at our new lodge which is one of the National Geographic Unique Lodges of the World. The accommodation is great - we have our own chalet with a deck that faces the jungle. After settling in, we joined our guide for an evening boat cruise - this time we came prepared for the sudden showers as Brian quickly purchased ponchos for us. We saw more probiscis monkeys but little else except the jungle scenery.

We got back just in time for a mediocre dinner with our guide and discussed our plan for the next day that was to include a visit to a cave to see the bats leaving in the evening ( high on Anne’s list of things to do). However, he went on to explain that the area is covered with cock roaches - apparently all the handrails are covered with them. In addition there are also long legged centipedes, but the final icing on the cake was that you are provide with masks due to bat guano dust, and a helmet to stop stuff falling on your head! One look at Anne’s face, I realised that my life long ambition to watch millions of bats fly out of a cave had to be shelved! Anne did offer for me to go on my own, but I wouldn’t want to do that would I!!

The next morning we set off for our early morning boat cruise at 6:30 and discovered why it’s called the rain forest. It had rained hard all night and at 6:30, it was still bucketing down. However, being hardy Brits, we donned our newly purchased ponchos and set off regardless. Not sure the effort was worth it, but we did see a crocodile, a stork-billed kingfisher, Black Hornbills and a number of monkeys. Our guide is such a keener that we stayed out much longer than the other people only to find, when we got back to the lodge, that they had scoffed most of the breakfast!

Later in the morning we did a short walk on a covered walkway around the lodge, but as it was still raining hard, the birds and animals were wisely keeping a low profile, so we only saw a few monkeys but had some interesting information from our guide about the trees and plants that we saw.

Later in the afternoon, we ventured out with our guide once more for our last boat cruise. It had rained solidly all day, so donned in our ponchos, off we set to see if we could spot any wildlife. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a lot of action, but we did spot more Black Hornbills, a White Bellied Sea Eagle, a Brahmin Kite. We also spotted some Silver Langur (Silver Leafed Monkey), some pig-tailed Macaque and a flock of night herons. Not a bad haul considering the weather.

We leave tomorrow to go back to Kota Kinabalu for a night and then on to
Langlowi Island for our last five days before returning to Ireland.Read more