Up early because our bags are picked up at 8am. We paid last night so we can have breakfast and go straight into the Permai van to the airport. It’s less than an hour. Domestic check-in is fast and we are at the gate before our ATR-72 (Wings of Love) arrives.
Descent into Mulu:
It’s just over an hour over rain forest and large scale agriculture. Tarmac landing strip.
The terminal is simple and our luggage is out first. A lady with a truck takes us to the resort (1km or so) and Jane arranges for her to pick us up Thurday 22nd.
You enter the park over a 1 track wide suspension bridge and reception is efficient. They have arranged a single Chalet for us for the whole period, so no moves and splits as originally communicated via email.
It’s a bit enormous. Large living room, 2x bedrooms for 4x people, kitchen, etc. We take it very easy and some even sleep:
Enormous rain comes down, and we meet some Canadians who shelter on our patio and come to admire the house. They’re from Vancouver.
Thank God they have spag-bol:
Out first animal encounters:
Big tree:
In the evening after dinner we should do the evening walk and fortunately it stopped raining. Henry, our guide, tells us that he will take us a different route because of the fire ants on the forest floor. I talk to him and he asks about England. With the help of all involved we manage to spot a large number of animals:
Mating stick insects ad a large gecko.
Poisonous caterpillars (do not touch!)
Stick insects and another stripy gecko.
Another gecko and a large snail.
Left a kingfisher and right a different sleeping bird. Just above head height over the path.
A toad and a frog. These frogs are responsible for 40% of the forest noise (wak? wak? wak? all night long)
Look closely: A very large spider on the tree and another surprised gecko.
We do the tour together with an English family from Lancashire. Three very nice kids. Girl has a horse, about to receive school results. Boy into sailing, about to by RS200 with a friend. Husband bridge engineer, involved in Sizewell-B build.
We also see fireflies (at arms length) and luminous leaves and twigs (due to fungi) as well as a luminous mushroom.
Reward after night walk – large milkshakes:
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