One challenge at a time

  One Challenge At a Time was born when a man called Mike Peters came into my life. He provided the inspiration to break the bounds, to go out and seek adventure, to challenge myself physically and mentally and more importantly squeeze every inch out of life because 'All we have is Time'. He was a river that forged the way that I followed.  Time ran out for my inspiration. He fought cancer with every breath he had.  One Challenge has been a bit quiet in the year 2025. Focus has needed to be on other parts of my life. 2025 could have been the breaking of me but instead I believe it has been the making of me or the re-making of me as once again I have to forge a new path, face up against a life change thrust upon me. Out of hardship, character is formed... I was ruminating this week on how I have survived this year with my soul intact and not become a broken wreck. I thought of Mike and all he went through yet smiling throughout and facing everything headlong. What builds t...

  Coming home I love travelling, seeing new places, experiencing new cultures, meeting people with lives so different from my own... but here's the thing.... I love coming home too. Day 13 marked the beginning of wending my way back home. Since my flight back to Kuala Lumpur was from Tawau, I had to first make my way back there... Another 5 hour bus ride. Admittedly I hadn't planned it the best way as I had travelled halfway to Tawau to go to Kinabatangan yesterday but that's how it is with travelling sometimes... you only find out the best way to do things once you get to your destination. Usually I leave wiggle room but as this trip was short it was easier to book the hotels and plan so I didn't waste time. So another early start and Sam, the taxi driver that had picked me up from the bus a few days ago, arrived at the Sepilok B and B at 0630. He had already checked out the bus times for me and I had plenty of time to get the 0730 bus... Arriving at the bus station co...

The river runs through... I woke up this morning to slightly grey skies. It had rained heavily overnight and the ground outside was very muddy and full of puddles. My shoes, which had been immersed in muddy water yesterday had not dried out, nor had my last pair of dry socks! Putting wet socks and shoes on wasa mildly unpleasant start to the day. Hopefully it would improve. Today's main course was a trip to Kinabatangan River with an afternoon cruise along it. It didn't leave until 1pm so I had some time to kill and decided to head back into the jungle one last time. I had a leisurely breakfast and the strolled the 400m to the rainforest entrance. Despite the grey skies it was still pretty warm (sorry to those back home, don't worry alI will get my comeuppance when I freeze on my return!)and it was a pleasant stroll down the road.  Once in the park I decided to try the Lakeside trail as Jaity said I may see the langur monkeys there. But all was quiet.. nothing stirred, not ...

  My first full day in Sepilok and I had a mission. My request to join tomorrow's day excursion to Kinabatangan River had been accommodated and so I had today to get as much accomplished in Sepilok as possible. First up was a morning visit to the orangutan and sun bear sanctuaries. They both are centres for rehabilitating wildlife back to the wild and as such did really important work.  The orangutans were first up as I knew that the feeding time was 10am and I wanted to look around, see that and then move on to the sun bears. I figured this would be the busiest place I would encounter and so set off early for the 15 minute stroll from my b and B. It was a warm morning and pretty soon I was sweating buckets. I arrived at the sanctuary just before opening time and pretty soon went in and followed the walkway. Visitors were not allowed in the indoor nursery bit where young, abandoned and orphaned orangutans were brought. Here they were given medical care if necessary, watched ro...