Day 8... Little reward

 

Firstly, apologies that I have got behind in the blogs. So much is happening on a daily basis that it has been quite difficult to keep up with the blogs. however a 2 hour bus ride today should allow me to catch up a little. 

Day 8 was one of those days... I had been very lucky in the preceeding days and that luck couldn't last I guess. That is the nature of looking for animals in the wild... you don't always come up trumps. The heavy rain from the day before had disappeared but it still wasn't quite as warm as it had been. Yulinda took us on our morning walk to the waterfall near the recreation area. There wasn't much sound from the forest and it seemed that everything was having a good lie in. One which I was wishing I also had had  My feet, from the previous days exertion were hurting a little and wellington boots, whilst the ideal footwear for these conditions were not the most comfortable to walk in.

We didn't spot much, the odd frog and that's about it. The trails were muddy and the mosquitos were out in force. My legs had begun to resemble a dot to dot pattern from all the bites which occasionally became unbearably itchy but that is the price I often pay for the trekking I do.

I did a very short walk by myself after breakfast, again spotting very little... and I was pretty tired. I ended up going back to the accomodation to escape the sun and chilled for a bit. 

The afternoon walk with Yulinda proved a little more fruitful. We crossed the suspension bridge in the recreation area which was full of macaques. One of the monkeys had a damaged lip, which to me looked very much like a cleft lip but it could have sustained it in a fight. Yulinda told me that they didn't expect him to survive but that he had done well and the injury didn't seem to bother him. We crossed over the bridge to be confronted by a monitor lizard, searching for scraps. He was a good sized one and we stood watching him. for a few minutes as he made his way back towards the river having been spooked by our presence. I was now getting fairly complacent about seeing them but they are truly magnificent creatures, with long powerful tails which they use as a whip in defence and large long powerful claws, which is enough to deter all but the most determined of predators. 

The river was muddied and swollen, moving with much more vehemently that prior to the rains. I wondered if the monitors could swim in such a powerful current, only to have that confirmed shortly after with one taking to the water and swimming across with little difficulty..

We looped round to the car park, a favourite place to sit and spot some of the wildlife here. The hornbills often flew over and you could see their flight in this spot easily with no canopy to look beyond. 

Today though the hornbills were quiet but a tree rustling on the far side of the car park gave notice to us that something was foraging there. Fully expecting it to be the macaques, I was surprised by catching a glimpse of red fur and then having that confirmed when a red leaf monkey dropped out of the tree onto the grass and the bounded across the car park. A second one, more hesitant, followed shortly after. The sight of them bounding along made for a great video and I managed to capture the moment. 

Dinner as usual was rice and greens, but this time, I took a mouthful of the greens and my mouth had a hole burnt into it. Not sure what was on them but they were incredibly spicy... and korma is my limit.  I struggled through, pausing to douse the fire with liberal cups of water. 

My night walk was eagerly anticipated but as if the universe had decided to balance our array of finds yesterday, we again found very little. A few unusual insects, including the violin beetle and a pair of stunningly plumage kingfishers, asleep on a branch. However Chavez had decided to be my guide for this one, so I got to know him better and he told me about his work in Borneo to help conserve the forest to keep the animals safe  He is doing a truly marvellous job. At the end of the walk we went by the pond again... there sitting was another painted mock viper. A dependable species in these parts, it seems we could always find one of those.

When I got back, I did my usual check. for leeches and found 2 blood trails running down my leg. So stealthy are these blood sucking creatures, that they had latched on, had their fill and dropped off without me noticing a thing!

Tomorrow was my last day in Tawau before moving on to Sepilok and I was determined to make the most of it.