Camp 5

We head off up the Melinau River in motorised longboats...

Advancing into the jungle, no eerie Heart of Darkness trip this, but the occasional bump in the shallow water kept us on our toes. We were lucky, in the dry season, you have to get out and push it over the bottom...

 

The local people still use the river for washing their dishes... (apologies for the blurred photo, I felt a bit bashful taking it)

 

We stopped off at a Penan tribal village on the way... here some pig jaws are drying on a fence, I'm not sure why...

This lady was selling bead bags and bracelets...

Here she is again belting out a tune on a nose flute, which she did from time-to-time... I didn't take this one, as she looked too formidable to ask...

Formerly nomadic, the Penan tribe have been encouraged to live in permanent settlements, naturally the settlement has a full-size football pitch. It was a little bit Blue Square Conference with 18 inch grass and some chickens on the pitch (they think it's all over)...

Approaching Wind and Clearwater Caves...

Clearwater Cave entrance... There was a stream inside the cave that reputedly knocks a year off your age for each time you wash in it, but beware if you wash more than five times it starts to add years on...

The group outside Clearwater Cave...

Front: Ness, Cathryn & Karen; Back: Susan, Viv, Clive, Barry, Nigel, Christine, Alan, Becky and me.

Wind Cave... looking up through a collapsed part of the ceiling...

A selection of knobbly columns, stalactites and stalagmites...

This macabre looking one is known as the arm... others required significantly more imagination to match the name to the shape, I can only assume that there are some pretty potent herbs growing locally...

This one's shadow is said to resemble Jesus...

We were not alone inside the caves...

Birdwing butterflies on the path outside...

Arrival at Kuala Litut and a quick scramble up the muddy bank before a liberal dousing in Dettol and deet all round and an 8.8km walk to Camp 5....

The walk included two small and bouncy suspension bridges...

Getting close to Camp 5...

Camp 5... clothes hung outside in the forlorn hope that they might dry. I'm sure mine just absorbed more moisture from the atmosphere. The camp had a stinging bee problem as the bees are attracted to sweaty clothes and there were plenty of those the next day...

We all shared a room with two raised platforms to sleep on, but each of us had an individual mat to sleep on and mosquito net to sleep under...

It did have a Tenko feel to it, but it was a sight for sore eyes the next day after the Pinnacles...

The river was ideal for a quick dip to wash off the mud and odour of deet...

A nice clear map and it all seems so simple, but the Head-hunters trail has numerous unmarked off-shoots and we heard a tale later in the trip of a girl who had got lost there the day after we left and had to spend the night on her own in the jungle with no torch, food, water or spare clothing - she used the flash on her camera to see what it was that was biting her at any given time, now they would be some interesting holiday snaps...

The last rays of the sun light up the cliff face opposite...

Day 1 - Miri	Day 6 - Kota Kinabalu	Day 11 - Mt Kinabalu to 3276m
Day 2 - Gunung Mulu	Day 7 - Sepilok	Day 12 - Mt Kinabalu Summit
Day 4 - The Pinnacles	Day 8 - Kinabatangan River Camp	Day 13-14 - Mamutik & Kinarut
Day 5 - Return to Gunung Mulu	Day 9-10 - Sabah Tea Plantation