The lodge was lovely! I felt very 'Livingston' staying in the the wooden cabins on stilts, surrounded by a hive of wildlife. The roar of the jungle was quite astounding - the relentless clicking and squawking and buzzing was actually beautifully musical.
We took some lunch in the open wooden hut then embarked on a river cruise down the Kinabatangan River in Sukau, which turned out to be far more impressive than our visit to Sepilok; Being in a boat, we were able to get up close and personal with the wildlife, without disturbing them or their habitat.
We saw a plethora of species, including leaf monkeys...
Dragonflies....
...The odd looking Proboscis Monkey with his long nose and weird-looking face...
...and brilliantly white cranes...
We also saw abandoned orang-utan nests in the tree tops, the huge Monita Lizard, and almost caught a glimpse of wild elephants, but they slipped into a nearby palm oil planation just before we could capture them.
After a simple dinner of fish, rice and curry (and a quick nap in a hammock) we ventured back to the boats to experience the jungle at night....And what an experience it was!
We were joined by two experienced rangers who took us up river and controlled two powerful lamps for spotting our nocturnal company.
It was amazing how keen an eye they had for spying the creatures on the river bank, a good ten meters from the boat. Among our first sightings was a small frog, about three centimeters wide (!!!) perched on a leaf. Somehow, the rangers spied it from afar and we zipped across for a closer look....
By this point we were convinced the ranger had strategically placed all these tiny creatures in advance - there was just no way that the ranger could spot them in the dark without so much as a pair of binoculars....But then you cant strategically position CROCODILES!!! That's right, the next sighting was a young croc, only visible by its beady eyes protruding from the dark water. As soon as we got close it sank, sinisterly, back in to the water and evaded our cameras. :( so the croc hunt continued...
We saw so many examples of nocturnal wildlife including a three meter long python (!), an owl, several Kingfishers, all manor of monkeys, a Monita Lizard and two more crocs. A truly exhilarating experience.
Towards the end of the ride, the rangers turned off the engine and we just floated for a few minutes by the light of the moon and the stars and listened contently to the jungle symphony. I felt very 'at one' with nature.
We headed back to the lodge for a (cold!) shower and were greeted by bats and brightly coloured winged insects outside the lodges. Glad of the stilts raising us from the swampy croc and snake territory below, we nestled down for the night to dream about the jungle and it's beasts and all that we had seen.
Nighty night, don't let the crocodiles bite x x x x x x
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Billet Rainforest
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