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Spider!:

Today it is time for our unguided jungle trek.  Any unaccompanied walking needs to be registered with security and the guy asks lots of questions about the kids.
We intend to walk to the waterfall where you can swim and then decide whether to continue or not.

We’re on our way to Paku waterfall.  Many of the plants here would do well as house plants.

Pretty dragonfly and Jane has a tiger leach:

Lots of trees like this one.  A millipede:

Swimming at the Paku waterfall:

Well camouflaged frog and another house plant:

Squirrel?

Almost done.  Mulu Village on the other side of the river:

Chicken at village and a small leach (that didn’t attach yet):

Some more lizards:

We complete the walk in 3.5 hours or so which is 2 hours quicker than we expected.

Large Meranti on the way to the Canopy Walk

Alex with our guide:
 

Every tree you see is full of parasites and other trees that take advantage of it’s elevation:

Elephant ears and the path near the cafe

Another pretty snake spotted next to the cafe:

In the afternoon we do the Deer and Lang cave walk.  On the way we spot wild bananas (even the monkeys don’t eat those) and a very yellow/green grashoppery animal:

There is a little information point and snack shop near Deer and Lang cave.  Deer cave is right behind us in the picture.  We also spot a tiny orange baby snake on the other side of the stream:

Deer cave is enormous and has some really cool features:

Stalagtites growing sideways with the help of some light and bacteria:

Bat exodus from Deer cave:

In the middle of the night Alex wakes up because he needs to wee.  I find some pretty big cockroaches in the bathroom.  I forgot about them!  If you want to live in SEA you need to learn to ignore them!  Airco helps a lot to drown out the sound of the occasional patter of insect feet on the polished floor.

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: