We’ve just spent a couple of days at The Last Frontier, situated on a hilltop overlooking the Kinabatangan river in Sabah, Borneo. The intention was to have a jungle base from which to explore, both on foot and by boat, the Borneo rainforest.
Travelling overland across Borneo from Kota Kinabalu to Kinabatangan, you cannot ignore the relentless spread of palm oil plantations, at the expense of primary rainforest; Malaysia accounts for almost half of the world’s palm oil production. At least 60% of Malaysia's rainforests however still remain intact, unlike the two world's two largest rainforests, in Brazil and the Congo, where much higher rates of deforestation have occurred. Ironically a large Malaysian Palm oil conglomerate has just announced its investment in a massive 10 year palm oil project - in the Congo!
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| Land divided by rainforest and palm oil plantations |
On arrival at Kinabatangan, you climb up a lot of slippery wooden steps (568, the boys announced triumphantly at the top!) and we enjoyed a delicious lunch of spaghetti bolognese - the finest pasta dish, we agreed, since Louis’ birthday in Cabo Polonio. Jason, the co-owner, who picked us up from our hostel in Sepilok, has a degree in cookery, and is responsible for the exceptional food we enjoyed throughout our stay.
After dumping our gear in our rooms, we headed off on the boat trip, and there was an air of excitement reminiscent of our Pantanal trip. The boat sped through some decidedly murky water, chocolate brown with sediment, logs and a few plastic bottles ("bottlenose dolphins” as Jules referred to them!). We saw numerous proboscis monkeys, long-tailed Macac monkeys, some hornbills, fish eagles, and even a very large monitor lizard lying on a branch overlooking the river. All in all a good first trip and we had time to catch up with the other two groups with us, a French family and an Australian couple living in KL.
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| Back on the river again |
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| Mangrove snake |
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| Large monitor lizard overhanging the river |
In the morning, the boys were already looking forward more to breakfast than the trek, having heard Gert, the co-owner, announce the previous evening that there would be banana pancakes for breakfast! Even that exceeded expectations, with the boys’ pancakes arriving with their names on them, in biscuit writing! At least Louis waited for the photo before wolfing his down! Louis wondered why Jules and I didn’t have our names on them. Gert explained that it is only if you are under 18; to which Frankie added “....and of course Mummy is 43 so doesn’t get any!”
We went on a jungle trek, climbing along some steep trails, with Ryan, our guide, helping us spot some wildlife. At various moments, we saw a large golden web spider, (somehow not so scary when stationary AND a safe distance away) another large monitor lizard, a brown tree skink, a beautiful striped bronzeback tree snake, some ammonite ferns - at least that’s what we called them - a rhinoceros hornbill, a wrinkle-lipped bat and probably the highlight for Frankie, a crested forest lizard that Ryan showed him how to pick up, just behind the neck, so that he wouldn’t get bitten. Frankie duly obliged without fear.
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| Wrinkle-lipped bat |
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| Golden web spider |
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| Striped Bronzeback tree snake |
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| Cute brown tree skink liked climbing on Frankie |
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| Ferns reminiscent of ammonite shells |
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| Frankie with his crested forest lizard |
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| ....and a close up of his mouth! |
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| Rhinoceros hornbill |
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| Overlooking Kinabatangan on the jungle trek |
Our second boat trip treated us to an exhibition of proboscis athleticism of the highest order, with monkeys seemingly trying to out do each other with improbably large jumps. One rather portly male may have underestimated his weight, as the branch he landed on after jumping some ten metres, snapped on as he landed on it, causing him to fall several metres further in something of a flurry of flailing limbs and branches as he recovered himself.
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| The end of the boat trip |
All too soon it was Saturday morning, and time to leave, and as I write this, I am trying to ignore some ninja action movie with unbelievable amounts of blood, guts and gore on the giant screen half way up the bus. I hope this doesn’t last the entire 4 hours of the journey! For once we’ve encouraged the boys to be glued to their Ipad lest they get nightmares from the mutilations and slow motion decapitations that seems to feature in almost every scene!
Next stop the crystal clear waters of Mabul Island, where we hope to snorkel with amazing sealife, and, if we're lucky, catch the Wimbledon final, and Andy Murray’s bid for Wimbledon glory, and, more importantly of course, BBC Sports Personality of the Year, as we’ve yet to see a single game this year. We don’t even know if Andy Murray made it to the Quarter Finals.......
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