Day 6...Tawau Hills introduction

 

Early morning... awake at 5am to head to the airport. It had been really lovely staying with Maria and Tom and catching up after 13 years but I was ready to leave and find a bit of peace and quiet away from the city. 

I was heading to Tawau, a small town and from there to Tawau Hills with 1 stop Borneo, a company that had reforestation programs and jungle guides. A bit out of the way of the normal tourist route, I was hoping that there would be less people there and a better chance to find animals.

The flight wasn't fun. Bumpy and with a landing that could best be described as 'winging it', we swerved into Tawau and landed with an almighty bump. Here, in Borneo, after many years of dreaming of a visit.

I was met at the airport by Mr Wong, who kindly spent the entire journey telling me about Borneo, it's wildlife, people and the Palm Oil business. The roads were nearly empty once we had left the airport and in surprisingly good condition. It was also very hot. 30 degrees of unrelenting sunshine and it felt waay hotter than KL. 

Once we arrived at Tawau, I was greeted by Yulinda, a young lady who was immediately helpful and welcoming, putting up with my incessant questions. We sat down and ate lunch, noodles, chicken and veg, before she showed me to my accomodation for the next few days. She informed me that I was the only visitor at the moment which suited me just fine. She comes from Tawau and has done a course with lots of exams to become a guide. Very knowledgeable and clearly loves her job. I did ask if we could swap lives, but funnily enough that wasn't particularly appealing to her!

Once I had thrown my bags in my room, she showed me around a little and then left me to go explore for a bit. Our walk would be at 1630 so I had a bit of time.

There were a few trails here, one to the tallest tree in the world, one to a waterfall and one to a hill, the trail head of which started just outside the park. Three were some locals having picnic and cooking food in the recreational area of the park so I turned to the trail up to the tallest tree. 

It started out on a gravelled path. I walked slowly to try and spot any animals. The macaques were easy to spot as they crashed loudly through the trees, leaving swinging branches in their wake. Once you hear the crashing, you then scan for the branches moving. Once you have found that, it's pretty easy to find the macaques.

I have already seen a lot of macaques close up, the long tailed macaques to be exact, but these were less habituated to humans and although not afraid, were not so. u afraid that they would get close to you. The first ones I saw here were fairly high up in the trees and scampered away, jumping from branch to branch.

To see other animals you must move slowly and quietly. taking a few steps, watching for movement of a leaf or branch and listen for sounds. When you have been in the same place for a few days you can start to distinguish the different calls. To start with a hornbills sounds like Gibbons and a ciccada (the 6 o clock ciccada') sounds like the hornbills. After a few days you can pick. out the difference and then know what level to look... top canopy, middle canopy or for frogs, on the ground. Unfortunately the animal which I am predominantly interested in finding, makes no sound and barely rustles the branches as it stealthily slithers through the undergrowth... but that's what makes looking for them so rewarding.

I'm my little walk, I did spot a few things, lizards and sinks mainly. An interesting beetle type creature, which turned out to be a pill millipede and a few other small things. But possibly because it was in the highest point of the heat of the day, most animals were doing the sensible thing and staying out of the sun. 

The trees here are something else. Similar to Costa Rica, the buttress roots spread out, and the trees stretched upwards to the heavens, so high, that if you do spot anything in the tree tops, it is a challenge to see it, even with my nice new binoculars (thanks Paul and Helena!)

On the trees grow epiphytes such as bromeliads and stranger ficus. The bromeliads are huge, 4 x the size of any of mine in my terrarium back home. Everything here is on a larger scale. Even the tree leaves are ginormous.

The strangler ficus pretty much does what it says on the tin... strangles the tree that plays host until it dies.

Each tree is it's own ecosystem, host to many thousands of species, from insects, to tarantulas and snakes to monkeys and some of the rarer nocturnal mammals. To be surrounded by this type of jungle is truly breathtaking and fills me with a peace that I don't find in any other type of environment.

I did of course find the one creature that I would happily kill to extinction, the humble mosquito, which always seem to find me pretty appetising. Bites started to appear quickly and would continue to do so until I am a dot to dot picture. 

I passed a Chinese couple on the way up but as time was getting close to the time I was to meet Yulinda for our afternoon walk, I stopped short of the tallest tree and made my way down again. The way up was essentially all uphill and steps and had been pretty tiring in the heat. So downhill was a nice change. The trail had been kept nicely and the steps were easy to negotiate so I got back to the research centre where my room was in good time. 

A short while later Yulinda appeared and we set off on our afternoon walk. Give that it's a rainforest it wasn't much of a surprise when it started to rain and we took shelter in the recreation area until it passed. All the locals had now left the park and we had it to ourselves. Then Yulinda pointed to the shore of the river... 

meandering along without a care in the world was a small (by its species standards) water monitor... the another larger one wandered by, literally within a few feet of where we were sitting. Unbelievable.!

All that time that I had spent trying to get a glimpse of one monitor at Maria's, and here were 3... no 4... lizards just strolling around. 

The biggest one was probably 6ft nose to tail tip, his claws like daggers and his tail whip thin at the end. He came closest, unbothered by our presence. Within 15 minutes I had seen more wild monitors and been closer than I had in the rest of my trips put together. So chuffed and excited! 

The rain stopped and we set off again, scanning the tree tops. Hornbills flew overhead and settled in the treetops. There are a few different species of hornbills here, these were the rhinoceros hornbills. Yulinda could clearly see the difference from that distance, I struggled to spot them with my binoculars😂

We went on, with the light beginning to fade and the hornbills were making their way back to the tree they spend the night in. The macaques were out the front of the park, a large troupe with many young ones. The long tailed version again.

Once night fell we headed back for dinner in the restaurant and Yulinda told me a bit about herself and how she came to be here. She is an excellent guide and I was very lucky to have her. 

After dinner, it was almost straight out again, this time armed with torches. This was the bit I was most excited about, for many of the species that I am most interested in are nocturnal. Night is the play time for many snakes, frogs and big spiders! 

We were joined by some other guides, possibly they were just along for fun, but the more guides, the more eyes and that is always a good thing. I'm no time at all, there was a shout of snake and we hurried down to the waters edge. There, curled up on a leaf was a small mock viper. Non venemous and diurnal, it was now asleep. We walked along the shore... another one and another. There were loads of them! The mock viper has a beautiful colouration, creamy white with a brown striped pattern on top. One viper I even found by myself, which always makes me happy! 

Then we spotted a snake swimming in the pond... a mildly venemous keeled snake, searching for frogs. Yulinda told me that they don't see so well and rely on vibrations to hunt. This one came close to my boot and when I moved my foot, he struck out, clearly unaware that I was not a frog.... this is why I wear wellington boots when snake hunting!

We saw several more kneeled snakes swimming around. A brownish coloured snake with red colouration on the sides. 2 species of snake already!

There were frogs galore, many different species of varying sizes. The smallest one just about thumbnail size. We also found a tarantula, which was a beautiful purple colour and about the size of the palm of my hand. It had left its daytime hole and was sitting on the tree trunk, waiting for a meal to scurry by. Lots of different types of insect also fell into our torch beam as well as a lizard, sleeping on the end of a branch. If a predator came nearby, he would drop off the branch to make a quick escape. 

It was nearly time for our walk to end, but then a call came from one of the other guides. We went over to find a somewhat surprised spiny turtle sitting there. This type of turtle wanders about in the forest and doesn't just stay in the water.

What a day it had been. 27 individual snakes and 2 different species, not to. mention the whole host of other interesting fauna. And it was only the first day here. What would tomorrow bring?