Kinabatangan River

Sorry it's been a while since the last post. The internet is hard to come by in the jungle. It doesn't grow on trees, or...

Coming back from Semporna, Steph and I stayed in the desolate town of Sandakan for a night before hightailing to the Kinabatangan River on December 15. We stayed there for two nights. The Kinabatangan is Sabah's largest river. Sadly most of the forest around the river has been cleared for palm-oil plantations. This has led to a high density of wildlife amassing in the remaining strands of forest. Steph and I stayed at the Bilit Adventure Lodges, where we met three German guys and two girls from England. On the first afternoon all seven of us, plus two guides, went on a boat down the river. We saw Proboscis Monkeys and both Short-tail and Long-tail Macaques in the trees. We also saw Hornbills and other birds. After dinner we set off on a night walk and saw an incredible array of insects, arachnids and frogs - plus a Mouse Deer (a tiny species of dear the size of a large rat). 

The next morning Steph, myself and the Germans boarded the boat for a dawn cruise. Our guide spotted something moving in the trees two hundred metres away. As we got closer I saw a human-like arm stretch out from the leaves and grab a branch. It was an orangutan. The guide stopped the boat's engine and we all whispered in amazement at what we were seeing. Looking through the telephoto lens I could see a small shape clinging to the orangutan's dark red hair - a baby! We stared up at the mother and her baby for a long time before setting off again down the river. Here we saw more Proboscis monkeys and macaques.

Later in the afternoon, having said good-bye to the Germans and the English girls, Steph and I went on a trek to the Kinabatangan's Ox-bow lake. Along the way our guide (the same one from our night walk the previous night and the morning boat ride, whose name I never caught) somehow caught sight of another orangutan in the treetops hundreds of metres away. Although it was hard to get a clear view of it through the canopy, it was visibly large and I could see it's orange hair. Our guide said it was a male. The path leading to the lake was made up of deep mud. Luckily the lodges rented out gumboots and leech socks. Before reaching the lake our guide pointed out to us some tracks in the mud made by pygmy elephants. We were weary of these because of a piece of news that we had read a couple of days before.

Later that day we went for one last boat cruise. Amazingly, we saw another orangutan high up in one of the trees on the riverbank. And it also had a baby! We couldn't believe our luck. Traveling further downriver we saw kingfishers, bee-eaters and horn bills. Finally the forest thinned out into palm-oil plantations and we turned around and headed back. 

Below are some photos we took. Prizes for anybody who can name some of the species whose names have eluded us.

Kinabatangan flow.

A female Proboscis monkey.

A concerned looking Pig-tailed macaque chewing on its food.

A baby macaque chewing on fruit.

Another chewing Pig-tailed macaque.

Kinabatangan at dawn.

Orangutan. Person of the forest.

The orangutan watching us from the tree.

A little baby holding close to its mother.

Oriental-pied Hornbill.

Crested Serpent Eagle.

Daddy Long-legs, Bornean variety.

Stork-billed Kingfisher.

The view at Ox-bow Lake.

Ground tortoise, Bornean variety.

Our guide called this a milipede, but I'm pretty sure it was a form of slater (woodlouse).

Slater in a ball.

Our guide. He could spot an orangutan through dense forest from half a kilometre away. Sadly I couldn't remember his name.

Milipede.

Upon realising.

Upon reflection.

Forest giant.

Going back to the lodges at dusk.