Episode 40

Episode 40

Miri is a large modern city and the centre for the Sarawak oil industry with many oil wells just offshore and a refinery onshore. The original oil well, now closed off and made into a tourist attraction stands on top of the highest point overlooking the town and a couple of the offshore oil platforms can be seen.

This original oilwell “the Grand Old Lady” as its known was bored in 1910 and abandoned in 1972 after yielding an average of 7 barrels a day for all of those intervening years. It was bored using an ancient Chinese method that somewhat resembled a giant corkscrew with a couple of Chinese ‘coolies’ providing the turning power. We walked up here in the late afternoon to watch the sunset, it’s the thing to do here, but it was cloudy in the west and barely a hint of colour tinged the horizon. Another night we saw a glorious bright orange sunset from the window of our hostel.

Large shopping malls abound and very larger housing estates encircle the older part of the town. The most interesting area is that around the Chinese Temple where there are a couple of markets and plenty of small Chinese shops. There seemed to be one hell of a lot of shoe shops here and also in the big shopping malls, perhaps the women here are like Emelda Marcos and each have a 1000 or more pairs of shoes.

Another thing we have noticed not only here but in Sabah too, is the vast number of small restaurants and cafes. An enormous number of people must eat out each day to keep these places in business, it’s certainly not the tourists here as there isn’t many of them. On the whole they are quite clean and the food tasty when it’s not too ‘chilly’ hot so that you can actually taste it. Most people throughout Sabah and Sarawak speak enough English to be able to tell you what the dish consists of and whether or not it’s very hot and spicy.

One day we did some walking in the Lambir Hill NP an hours bus ride from the city. A pleasant enough place for some walks and from the top of a high hill I got a great view of the surrounding countryside but there wasn’t anything special to see.

The principle reason to come to Miri is for access to Gunung Mulu National Park a short 20min flight away. Later we found out that a direct flight now connects Mulu with Kota Kinabalu three times a week, this would have been very useful to us if we’d known about it beforehand.

The flight was interesting as we flew over large areas of oil palm plantations that reach almost to the National Park boundary and great brown rivers lazily meander their way across the flat land towards the coast. There is a rather smart modern terminal and a few service buildings, a couple of houses and a couple of upmarket accommodation places at or near the airport. A very dilapidated old mini van waited to convey those of us who were going directly to the National Park a couple of k’s away.

This National Park, a world heritage site, is where the biggest caves in the world can be found. The limestone hills hereabouts are almost hollow and riddled with caves, many of them interlinked. These caves are home to millions of bats and swiftlets and we were rather hoping that we would be more fortunate here than we had been at Niah and see the bats emerging at sunset.

All the tracks near the headquarters are boardwalks and that was just as well because there had been a lot of rain over recent days and any tracks that weren’t boradwalks were hopelessly boggy and leeches too, were a problem.

Visiting the caves meant that we had to take guided walks so we booked one to visit Deer Cave and Lang’s Cave one day and to Clearwater Cave and Wind Cave another day.

First we went to Deer Cave and Lang’s Cave; this was a very easy 3k walk through the rainforest on a boardwalk, we kept a lookout for any wildlife as there is meant to be some around but apart from the bugs and insects we could only hear birds and frogs. The track through the cave was good and not as slippery as those in other caves we’d visited. There are many stalagmites and stalactites of all sizes but because of the birds and bats they are not very dirty, and certainly the smell is none to attractive. Nor is the floor, a close study of which reveals it to be thick no only with guano but also alive with cockroaches and other beetles that live on the guano; it was a heaving mass:

Like most of these caves their dimensions are staggering and in places the roof was 150m above us, with a stream many metres below. Our guide pointed out dark patches on the sides and roof and told us that each one was a group of hundred or thousands of bats. This one cave, Lang’s cave is home to more than 2million of them. Just how that figure has been arrived at I cannot say, God knows how anyone could possibly count them. There is possibly just as many swiftlets too, but they have not had their nests harvested so there has not been the resulting damage to the calcite formations as there has been at Niah.

Situated just a few metres from these two caves is a purpose built viewing area where people sit and await the evening exodus of the bats. At this time of year that can be from about 5.15pm till 6.40pm by which time it is almost dark. A CCTV camera is set up in the cave beside one of the sleeping areas and two monitors in the viewing area give a good close-up view of one or two bats ‘at home’. I saw one feeding her baby. There are also a number of posters that give a lot of information about the bats and make for some interesting reading whilst awaiting their evening departure. On the first evening we waited and waited and eventually they began to emerge when most of us were about to call it a night and head off, the sun had set and the light was fast going. David could see them soon after they emerged from the mouth of the cave as they rose up past the white limestone cliffs of the hills, but I couldn’t see them until they became silhouetted against the light of the evening sky. They formed long squiggles across the sky as they went off to their hunting grounds. Not one huge group but many small groups of probably a few thousand individuals, emerging minutes apart.

There are many species of bats that live here and they range is size upward from very tiny ones that measure about 25-30mm (when hanging in their sleeping position) and weigh only a few grams. Mostly these little creatures live on insects and some fruit. I think I read that there are altogether around 30 million bats in the Mulu area, and that they collectively consume thousands of tons of mosquitoes and other pesky insects each night.

I can’t imagine how bad those insects would be without the bats to keep them in check. There were a few mozzies about but not clouds of them so the bats must really have to work hard to fill their tummies. Later when we were sitting eating our dinner at the canteen we watched one little bat swoop around the electric lights catching the bugs it attracted, this one had a wingspan of 75-100mm.

As we walked back along that 3k long boardwalk in the pitch dark we could hear the ‘barking’ frog, it has a very distinctive “whooopt whooopt” call, but try and we might we couldn’t see one. We stopped and shone the torch around and tried to hone in one the sound but failed miserably.

Each evenings we spent in the park we came along and waited for the bats, one evening they didn’t come out at all and we wandered back quite disappointed, and on another evening they come out early in dribs and drabs and formed ‘donuts’ against the evening sky, and continued whirling in circles and they moved off over the rainforest.

A much longer walk that took us up and down a great many steps, through another cave, eventually arriving at even more caves where we joined another tour: These caves are all interlinked and are part of a system that is 128’s long and has some massive caverns, making the limestone hills almost hollow. In these caves too there are many stalagmites and stalactites that are much cleaner because there are very few swiftlets and bats living in this system. Why that should be I cannot say: One of these caves, Clearwater cave, has a very swift stream running through it that is still cutting a deeper passage. There are underground waterfalls and rapids.

A few hours boat ride upstream from these caves, then an 8k walk leads to the area where there are many limestone pinnacles up to 1750m high, and I would have liked to have joined a party to climb these pinnacles but was put off somewhat after hearing that a lot of vertical free climbing up ladders is involved. Also after many months travelling and not getting much exercise neither of us was fit enough for such a strenuous hike. The heat too was also affecting us adversely, David especially. At some point in the future I would dearly love to go back to Borneo and climb these pinnacles and Mt Kinabalu.

We flew from Mulu back to Miri, and from there back to Kota Kinabalu where we collected our stored luggage and then flew back to Banda in Brunei to connect with our flight back to Brisbane. Arriving in Brisbane fairly late at night our friend Helen collected us from the airport and took us back to her home at Burpengary. After visiting other friends the next day we made our way home on a holiday Monday. Fortunately the heavier traffic was going south whilst we headed north arriving back in Burnet Heads in the afternoon, it was sunny and warm and the beach looked very inviting. So after nine and a half months we are home again.

Signing off till next time – Lyn

© Lynette Regan 16^th May 2008

Episode 39

Episode 39

We left Kota Kinabalu on a lovely sunny afternoon and flew through heavy rain that delayed our landing for a few minutes, it had been tipping down in Kuching. We saw some new and quite large housing estates just before we landed. These estates are quite smart and somewhat similar to what you can see in many European countries and Australia.

Kuching seemed very quiet after Kota Kinabalu; it has a population of around 600,000 and Sarawak has a total population of around 2.3 million. For several centuries this region was part of the Sultanate of Brunei, then around 1849 it came under the control of Sir James Brookes, the first of the three ‘white rajas’. During the ‘reign’ of the 3^rd Raja Sarawak was invaded by the Japanese and this member of the Brooks dynasty fled to Sydney. At the end of WW2 with the surrender of the Japanese the area was placed under Australian Military rule until 1946 when the exiled Brooks decided to cede his ‘Kingdom’ to the British. Many turbulent years passed until 1963 when it was incorporated into the new Federation of Malaysia, along with Sabah and peninsular Malaya. Singapore too, joined the original Federation but pulled out within a couple of years.

The centre is much smaller and things appear to be less hectic than KK. The main business area is on the south bank of the river and across on the north bank, still very much under construction is the new State Legislature building that dominates the landscape. A group of large tourist hotels stand clustered together along with a shopping mall and some of the cat statues for which the city is famous are to the east of the centre; while a nice riverside walk heading west will bring you to the big market when plenty of fresh produce is for sale. On the other side of the road there is a whole block of shops selling Sarawak handicrafts and to walk along there is a real obstacle course, each shop is about 12ft (4m) wide and the pavement in front of each shop is a slightly different height to its neighbour to either side, so apart from ducking under all the wares hanging up outside the shop you must watch where you step as well or risk falling flat on your face.

This central area is predominately Chinese with plenty of little Chinese restaurants and two Chinese temples, all very similar to those we’ve seen elsewhere. A few blocks away near the bus station there is a large mosque with gold topped minarets and dome and almost beside it is a Sikh temple, also with gold domes. We didn’t go into either: Not far from here are two or three churches and a Hindu temple is a little way out of town. So you see, just about every religion is catered for here except Judaism that certainly isn’t encouraged and probably not allowed here as people travelling on an Israeli passport cannot enter Malaysia.

On top of the hill by the Civic centre we found a high tower and took a lift to the top where we got a view over the whole city. It is surprising how well the trees and other greenery hide the buildings. In the distance we could see the jungle covered limestone hills near the village of Bau where there are a couple of caves that we visited.

An hours pleasant bus journey through suburbs of Kuching passing, along the way, the Hindu temple, another Chinese temple, numerous shopping malls and smart housing estates as well as some quite seedy looking areas, a little bit of countryside and we arrived in the village of Bau. Here we changed busses then a short distance outside the town we got off and walked about a kilometre along to Wind Cave. After paying a small entrance fee and armed with a torch each we set off into the foul smelling cave; it is only one cave really with several caverns all interlinked.

This cave like many more we were to visit are home to millions of swiftlets and bats and the floors of these caves are thick with guano. The smell is not pleasant: As it was daytime when we visited the swiftlets were quite active and very noisy, don’t know how the bats could sleep with so much noise but I expect that they are used to it, they have been sharing the cave for thousands of years.

A good path leads into the cave and through it, up and down many stairs and in places it is pitch dark, that’s why we had our torches. This cave was huge and it was the smallest of all those we were to visit. Several hundred metres of pathway and steps lead from one cavern into another and then another until eventually we came out the other side. There are some stalagmites and stalactites in this cave but we couldn’t see much of them as our torches weren’t powerful enough. We did see some swiftlet nests and they had eggs in them. We also saw some of the bats clinging upside down to the roof of the cave: All those bats and birds are still dropping guano and that makes the pathways and steps very slippery especially where there is water dripping too.

When we’d finished here we asked the only other person around where to find Fairy Cave and he gave us a lift there fortunately, as it was a long way distant. This cave is more a huge open cavern though I think there are some small passages that lead back into the hill. We had first to climb up 150 or so steps to even reach the entrance, then up about the same again before we came to the small Chinese shrine that sits in the centre of the open cavern. It is a huge cavern and where there is plenty of light and the rain can reach there are lovely ferns, mosses and lichens. From a ledge high up on one side there is quite an extensive view over the deep green vegetation of the flat land surrounding these hills; some small areas of vegetable plots and bananas but mostly there is long grasses and shrubs and vines with a few scattered trees.

Another day we took a combination of a bus and motor boat to the Bako National Park where there are some nice walks. This NP is on a small peninsular so is surrounded by sea on 3 sides. There is a canteen and several forms of accommodation there but it was all booked out when we planned to visit so we just made it a day trip.

The motorboat jetty is situated on a tidal creek on extensive tidal sand flats so that when the tide is out the boat cannot reach the jetty, we had to get out in shallow water and wade through it then across the sand flats to reach the shore and the NP headquarters. We had been warned of all sorts of stingers we might encounter in the water whilst wading ashore but we didn’t gat stung.

A long board walk stretched over quite a large area of those tidal flats and near the boat dock we saw some monkeys playing in the mangroves and there were many small crabs rushing about across the sand too. Some way further on along one of the trails we saw a troop of proboscis monkeys but apart from them the only other ‘wild life’ we saw were small insects and bugs. Funny how you get quite excited about seeing such things when nothing larger is likely to present itself for ones viewing. There are several species of larger manuals in this area, some two or three species of native cat, mouse deer, squirrels, macaques and flying lemurs, and the wild bearded boar. Many of those species are nocturnal: It was very hot here and in the middle of the day nothing much moves, not even the bugs, only the silly humans hiking in the heat.

The vegetation ranges from the mangroves on the tidal flats, through the thick rainforest just above the shore line, then it thins quickly as you climb the hill where much more sparse vegetation if found. There are also some small areas of peat bogs where pitcher plants can be found. One trail ended on a high cliff overlooking a lovely sheltered sandy beach with a view to a distant headland across the bay.

Later in the afternoon whilst we were sitting in the canteen enjoying a cool, refreshing drink one of those wild boars, a considerably tame one, strolled past. Such a sight grabbed everyone’s attention and whilst we were all otherwise occupied a very cheeky little monkey, a small macaque, took advantage of the situation and snatched some food from plates left abandoned and any other item that took his fancy. Apparently this is a regular occurrence each afternoon about the same time.

Borneo is famous for its longhouses, and most tourists like visit one of these places. Longhouses are how most of the local tribes people used to live; many still do, though more and more are moving to individual houses. The longhouse is a communal house where many families live under one roof. The small hostel where we stayed in Kuching offered a 4 day trip to a longhouse quite a long way distant and so not as touristy as some closer to the city, so we took the opportunity to visit.

Trips to this longhouse consist of no more than 4 people usually as the first part of the trip is in a 4wd and that’s all the passengers it can carry. In our group there were two Danish girls and David and I. We set out about 7.30am one morning in the 4wd, our driver being someone who came from this longhouse originally and is a member of the Iban tribe. The Iban people are the tribal people from this area and make up a large percentage of the population of the city of Kuching.

After an hour or so travelling along the main road that eventually leads north into Sabah we stopped in a large town and our driver took us into the local market and gave us many different types of fruit to taste. Some small round fruit with a hard shell like skin that looks a little like snake skin is called ‘snake skin’ fruit and I found it quite pleasant tasting with yellow flesh and a fairly large seed. Another smaller, but quite similar looking fruit is very bitter. Dragon fruit I would have to say was the best of all. They are quite red in colour and somewhat resemble a kohl rabi in appearance. Sliced open the flesh is bright pinkish/purple with tiny black seeds, the skin peels back easily making them easy to eat. They reminded me of something I’ve had before but I couldn’t remember what until we saw the plant that they grow on. It is a cactus, and though it grows in a very different from to prickly pear, that is what the flesh of the fruit is similar to. A very popular snack food in these markets is pancakes spread with a sort of peanut flavoured jam, quite tasty really. For anyone with peanut allergies this is not the place to visit as most local food usually has peanuts as an ingredient.

After buying a great load of supplies to go with us to the longhouse we continued on our way and soon after leaving the main road came to the river where the road ends and where we now had a two hour boat trip up the river.

Our boat trip was in a long, narrow canoe type boat, where we sat on special little wooden chairs one behind the other with a lookout up front and our driver and outboard operator at the back. All the supplies and our packs were loaded on with us and off we set upriver. It was quite fast flowing and with many sandbanks and tight turns much skill is needed to negotiate the very long boat past all the obstacles. Of course the rain chose that time to come along, well at least in this climate its not cold rain, so getting wet really doesn’t cause a great deal of discomfort.

Certainly our arrival at the longhouse didn’t create any excitement, in fact no-one made any effort to come and help us take our packs and all the supplies from the boat, up the steep track to the longhouse. So we each struggled up heavily laden:

Many families live in one long house. They are all related to each other: This longhouse is nearly 100m long. We went up the steps at one end and along a central passageway. On our right are the enclosed private areas for each family, whilst on our left was a semi enclosed veranda with an open slatted floor made of planks or split bamboo. The planks are ok to walk on but the bamboo is not so easy being smooth and rounded. Beyond the enclosed veranda, about 4m wide, was an open deck where each family had their clothes line and at the end of the deck most had a little shed in which the toilet was situated. For some though, including the one where we stayed, the toilet was down the bottom of the small yard reached by descending some very basic ladder steps, walking past the garden, the fish pond, and coming to a small tin shed where there was a shower as well as the toilet and a small chicken coop. The fish pond was full of fairly large carp:

This longhouse was divided into 17 separate living quarters, each one roughly the same size. The enclosed private sections were much larger than we expected with one large room that serves as living room come bedroom, and beyond that a smaller room used as a kitchen with a door and steps to the outside. So, you have a structure that is not only about 100m long but is also quite wide, 15m covered, and a further 5m or 6m uncovered. The roof was a mixture of BHP colourbond steel and very rusty corrugated iron. The place had been built in 1987 on a plot of land that had first been levelled by a bulldozer brought in overland and across the river in the dry season. There are 105 people resident here but with 50 of them being school age children who are away at school there was only 55 left here. The chief is a wizened old man in his 80’s who formerly welcomed us to the longhouse in the evening.

Our host took us on a walk up and over the hills behind the house: Growing up on these hill sides are plantations of pepper, the real stuff that most of us use as seasoning at some time. The pepper is a vine that climbs up a tall pole, the seeds (peppercorns) form on small seed heads with probably a couple of hundred seeds. These seed heads are nipped off when the seeds turn black. I will describe more of the process later. Along with the pepper there are many rubber trees, which, along with the pepper provides most of the income for these people. Each family in the longhouse owns their own bushes and trees. Large pineapple bushes and some rather scrappy looking bananas grow here too. We also saw the palm that is harvested for palm hearts. This particular one produces many heads so that harvesting the heart doesn’t kill this palm as it does with some species.

When we reached a clear cool stream with a nice waterhole we had a swim and rest while a couple of men from the longhouse prepared us the most wonderful BBQ lunch. This consisted of fish wrapped in large leaves that the guide didn’t know the name of, then pushed into a large bamboo tube that was cut from a nearby bush. Palm heart was cut into small pieces, wrapped in the leaf, and put into another bamboo tube, likewise with the chicken, and even the rice, separate tubes for each item, then the tubes were filled with water, sealed with a bamboo plug, and placed on a rack made of green branches over a fire. After a good while cooking the tubes were carefully removed from the fire and the meal served up on more leaves, the perfect disposable plates. It has to be one of the tastiest meals I have ever eaten. It was unbelievably good!!! We returned to the longhouse via a different route following the creek until it joined the river then along the river bank, a cooler alternative in the afternoon heat.

The men from the longhouse usually work at collecting rubber or picking pepper in the morning. Any pepper picked in the morning is usually ‘stamped’ in the afternoon. This is done by laying the collected pepper heads over a coarse sieve with a collection box beneath and people climb up and stamp on it to remove the seeds from the stalk. After that has been done then it is taken out onto the open veranda and laid out on woven mats to dry in the sun. This means a constant eye has to be kept on the weather as a shower of rain can come along very quickly and the pepper is brought inside before it gets wet. To get white peppercorns the seeds are first soaked in water to remove the outer husk then dried in the sun.

With the rubber trees a gash is made at a 45˚ angle in the trunk, a little spout inserted at the lowest part of the gash and this directs the sap into a small container at the base of the tree. After a couple of days this gash seals itself and a new one is made below it a few days later. The collected sap is taken back to the longhouse and in a nearby shed some sort of acid is mixed with it, then its poured into a large tray and put out into the sun to dry. The resulting material is like a thick piece of cream coloured spongy rubber, which, of course is exactly what it is. With the recent hike in oil prices the demand for rubber has increased greatly too, along with the price, but I don’t think very much of it is filtering down to these people.

I expected to see vegetable gardens but apart from a few tomatoes and some hot chillies in some of the gardens there didn’t appear to be anything else, only a few ornamental shrubs. A variety of green veggies would easily grow here, especially snake beans and some of the cabbage family.

The women, and some of the men spend a good deal of time weaving mats, baskets and many other items that they either use at home or try and sell at handicraft markets or to visitors such as us.

One evening we were entertained with some dancing. This consisted of only a couple of basic steps repeated over and over again whether or not it was the man by himself or the man and the woman together. The woman’s costume was a long dress decorated with a great many silver discs, whilst the man wore a feathered headdress and a cotton loin cloth, his body is covered in tattoos. The music was provided by 3 musicians using wooden and bamboo instruments that they tapped or banged. Not especially harmonious:

An hour’s boat ride upriver brought us to the school and clinic. The school has about 150 kids from several longhouses attending. Most of the children have to board and only go home every 2^nd weekend. They start when they are 7 years old and finish at this school at about 13. Then they have to go further away to secondary school and only go home one weekend a month.

The clinic has a small 5 bed hospital attached with 2 nurses who mainly deliver babies. There is also a paramedic resident here. On the day we visited it was very quite with nothing at all happening and that’s the way it usually is apparently. Our host collected a load of medicines for others at the longhouse while we were here. The paramedic can prescribe drugs and keeps plenty on hand to dish out as required.

During our stay there had been a lot of heavy rain and our trip back downriver was very fast with the water higher than it had been and flowing more swiftly. The rain was tipping down yet again when we arrived back at our hostel in Kuching. We had all really enjoyed our longhouse stay and would recommend this particular one to anyone who is interested; Labang longhouse on the Skrang River.

The next day we caught a morning ferry to Sibu some 5 hours away. This was quite a pleasant boat trip that took us up the coast then along the estuary of the Batang Rejang (Rejang River). It was calm along the coast and once we entered the estuary we passed a lot of logs being floated downstream from the logging sites in the interior. Many sawmills are sited along this estuary where we could see massive stacks of sawn timber.

Sibu doesn’t really have much to recommend itself. It is mainly used as a base for people going upriver to the interior. The population is predominantly Chinese and a fairly modern, and quite pretty, 7 tiered Chinese Pagoda stands on the river bank. As we were fast running out of time we didn’t head into the interior but continued northwards and another 5 hour journey, this time by bus put us in the little town of Batu Niah where we spent a day visiting the caves in the National Park.

Here we met an English chap whom we’d met briefly back in Sabah. We all went to the NP together. We walked to the NP, then took the boat across the river, no bridge, and made our way directly to the small museum where we saw some interesting exhibits found in the archaeological dig in Great Cave and some of the paintings from Painted Cave. A replica of the skull that is claimed to be several thousand years old is on display here. Under the eaves of the building we saw some of the bats that had been the reason for our visit.

Then set off on the 3k walk to the caves. This was very easy walking on a good boardwalk. Along the way we saw many bright orange/red millipedes on the hand rails but that was just about the extent of the wildlife until we reached the caves. All the literature we’d read said that the caves were full of bats and that at sunset they emerge in great clouds so that is what we’d come to see.

These caves are massive too: The old archaeological site by the main cavern entrance is where the skull had been found. We had come prepared with torches to explore the interior of these caves.

There was a great deal of up and down very slippery steps inside the cave. We could here the noisy swiftlets chattering away in their thousands and watch them as they swooped around outside catching insects on the wing then returning into the cave but we couldn’t see any bats. Great long ropes hang down from the cave roof, these are used by the ‘birds nest’ collectors in the collecting season. These are the nests used in birds nest soup. The most highly prized ones are the white ones with the yellow ones selling for a lower price. The swiftlets make them from saliva.

This might be a National Park and the swiftlets supposedly protected but not only are many of the nest collected but we also saw a couple of people collecting guano. Yes, these caves stank just as badly as the ones back near Kuching. There are some stalagmites and stalagities but only the very large ones survive, no doubt anything at all fragile has been broken off by the nest collectors.

We were mighty glad we’d taken our torches especially when it came to making our way towards Painted cave as we had to pass through an absolutely pitch black passage a couple of hundred metres long. We could hear a stream running far below.

In Painted cave, a much smaller but still huge cave, we saw the paintings but they are very faded and indistinct though they do cover quite a large area along one wall of the cave. Some of these paintings have been cut out and taken away to be exhibited in distant museum: I walked through and out the other side but the trail went no further. These limestone hills are full of caves but there are only a few that are open for visitors

We waited around until dusk to see these bats but if there were any they didn’t make an appearance for us and we were very disapointed. It was almost dark when we started out on the return trip along the board walk so I was very glad that it was an easy walk. When we got back to park headquarters and across the river, the boatman was still on duty, we found that the gate at the entrance to the foot path back to the village was locked so we climbed over that and set off along the path. On arrival in the village we went straight to the little restaurant and had a lovely hot meal of noodles and veggies while the sweat still streamed off us. Surprisingly few mozzies and other night insects flying about:

Our next stop Miri:

© Lynette Regan 12^th May 2008

Episode 38

Episode 38

We stayed in a jungle camp on the Kinabatangan River south of Sandakan. Here we had some trips up and down the river in the early mornings and late afternoons. Back at Sepilok we had met and English chap David, who is a keen bird watcher (twitcher), we had got off the bus from KK together and stayed at the same place in Sepilok and he had come here too at the same time. This was very handy as he had some books with the local birds illustrated so that we could put names to what we saw. Our guide too, just one guide for the 3 of us, was quite knowledgeable about the birds as well as other creatures we saw.

In our forays up and down the river we saw some brilliantly coloured kingfishers, lovely stately white egrets, grey herons, several different hornbills, and quite a variety of other birds. I got to see most of them fortunately. One morning we saw a group of river otters playing on a mud bank. There were several boat loads of tourists just like ourselves on the river and as we all neared the mud bank the otters ducked over the ridge and down behind it, but they were quite funny and very like Meercats in that they kept popping up for a look about. We watched them for quite some time. They are dark grey in colour and have lovely faces.

In the trees along the river we saw a colony of orang-utans, or I really should say everyone else saw them but I was damned if I could. Plenty of long tailed macaques about and one group of silver langurs and another of red langurs, these are both smaller types of monkey the latter having quite a red coloured fur. Proboscis monkeys live here too and we saw a couple of colonies of them. These are the same type as we saw in Brunei back last July at the start of our trip. Each colony of these monkeys has one male and his harem of females and their young. One big male we saw in a tree right at the rivers edge, it was the best view we have had of one and they are quite a large animal. The big males have an enormous hooked nose that is supposed to attract the females and this one was sitting there facing us with his bright red penis sticking straight up. It is thin and about 300mm (1ft long) and stood out very clearly against the yellow of his fur.

The river is very muddy and silting up because logging further upstream is leaving the land bare and erosion is becoming a big problem there whilst the silt is causing problems further downstream. Plenty of crocodiles on this river too, same species as the Australian estuarine crocks, and just as big.

Each evening we went for a torch light walk into the jungle to see whatever we could. Again the guide was quite good and we saw several frogs, some stick insects, spiders and scorpions and some sleeping birds. The thing that really surprised me is just how vulnerable the birds are at night. One, a red trogon, had his head tucked in and didn’t move a feather when the camera flashlight went off, and it did so several times each night. Another one was a tiny Taylor bird, he was awake and looking at us, but he didn’t move either, he just blinked, but another night he was flying about. Also saw a family of Bulbuls high up on a tree branch huddled together, mum, dad, and the kid in the middle. As we walked along the path with just torch light the guide would sometimes tell us to move along very fast whenever we came to an area where there are fire ants. The tracks were quite muddy and we wore wellington boots and long trousers to protect us from leeches and mosquitoes, not that there was a great many of the latter, very few really, some people did get leeches but I managed to avoid them. Poison ivy grows beside the track too and our legs needed protection from it too.

In the daytime we took a long walk through the jungle wading through mud over our ankles to an oxbow lake where we saw more birds but nothing different to what we’d seen on the river. Again we saw a great many leeches hanging on the leaves just waiting for someone to come by and brush them. David got one on him but I managed to avoid them completely. On our walk back from the lake we were joined by another group and with the track being very boggy our guide decided to take us over to the river bank and called back to the lodge for a boat to be sent for us. This idea worked well up to the point when we all got near the river bank and the boat came along. Then one of the other group, a chap from Singapore strode off towards the boat and sank up to his knees in the mud. He provided a great deal of entertainment for the rest of us as we watched while first he tried to move one foot then the other. Eventually with the help of the guides and others and some cut branches he was extradited and we all made our way very carefully over more cut branches across the mud and into the waiting boats. That mud was deadly:

In this area there is also the pygmy elephant, but at this time of year they are deeper into the forest and not easily found. They are called pygmy elephants because they are the smallest of all elephants but they are not small, just smaller than others. Our lodge has an electric fence around it to prevent them from wandering through and destroying the buildings.

From here we took a bus to Semporna on the east coast and from there we went out to the island of Mabul and stayed at a backpacker resort there. We did have intentions of doing some snorkelling on the reef but when we got there we found the sun so burning hot that we did little but take a few short swims in the early morning and late afternoon.

This island is a very popular base for divers wanting to dive on the reed off Sipidan Island. It is supposed to be one of the ten top dive spots in the world. I had thought to do snorkelling there but as I said it was just too burning hot and we had got very white from our time travelling in Europe. Still we spent quite a pleasant few days there keeping out of the sun. The island is very small and a village takes up most of it, then there are several resorts: Ours was built on stilts over the water right behind the main part of the village but there were several others spread around the island. Two of them were built on stilts over the water but much more upmarket than ours, and a couple were on the shore set among waving palm trees and with a swimming pool.

The village has rubbish spread everywhere, plastic bags, bottles, cans, God knows what, it was strewn about all over. One section of the village kept their area clean, each day it was swept clean and the sand raked but by late afternoon it was covered with litter again. There was piped water all around the village and we saw the water treatment plant, not sure about the sewerage though, just what happened with it, but there was some sort of system in place. In front of our resort was a reasonably clean area for swimming and a short walk past the end of the village was another area for swimming but even these places had a lot of rubbish in the water so it wasn’t all that nice. The temperature of the water was good though. An oil rig stood just offshore:

Just what all the people do for a living in this village I have no idea, but they certainly breed plenty of kids, never seen so many kids in one small village as I saw here:

The tide rose and fell several metres so this meant that there was quite a fast flowing current and a couple of girls who went snorkelling found themselves a long way from their starting point and called out for some one to come and collect them. A boat quickly went and picked them up. Some of the divers did comment that there was a great amount of rubbish on the reef though they all agreed that it was really good diving. Most came back quite sunburnt:

Next we spent a couple of days at Mount Kinabalu staying in one of the hostels in the park there. It was a Saturday afternoon when we arrived and I had been a bit concerned that we might have trouble getting accommodation there at the weekend but as it turned out there was no shortage of availability. Staying at the same hostel we met a lovely lady from Germany named Gisela with whom we made friends.

I would have liked to climb the mountain but I really wasn’t sure that I was up to it, David even less so, but as it turned out we didn’t find any group that had any spare places. With this walk you have to take a guide and stay overnight at a hostel about 500m below the summit. The agencies who organize walks to the summit book all the accommodation in advance so that it is very hard for independent travellers to get any. You must ask around the different groups of hikers and see if any have got some of their party that doesn’t want to do the climb, or not turned up, that way you can take their place.

The view of the mountain in the early morning from the veranda of the cafe is beautiful. The cafe is at an altitude of 1500m approx, and the jagged tops of the mountain are around the 4100m, and with the sun glistening off the sheets of steep, bare granite rock that has to be crossed by the hikers, it looks quite daunting. Each morning we would sit and eat breakfast on this veranda and think about those souls on the mountains who had left the hostel near the top that we could see, at 3am, to climb the last 500m to see the sunrise from the top. By 9am generally, the cloud is forming around the top and obscuring it from view.

Even without climbing the mountain there are a number of trails around through the forest that make quite good walks though the map the office hands out seems to bear little relationship to the actual trails and we seemed to go in circles somewhat. We joined a short nature walk and the young guide pointed out a number of plants and gave us a run down on their uses. One in particular is called the kerosene fruit. This yellow fruit produces an oil that the native people use to light their fires. It has quite a pleasant smell: The guide thinks the tree belongs to the leprospermum family: One of the tall forest trees is related to the Australian eucalypts:

Another guided walk was through the botanical garden section of the park. Here we saw the smallest orchid in the world; the flower is only about 2cm across, and the rarest orchid in the world. The flower on this one had died and another bud not yet out, but at least we saw the plant. Apart from this plant there are some seeds in the Kew Gardens seed bank in England. That’s how rare it is:

Many of the plants have been used by local tribes people for medicinal purposes and in this garden scientists are experimenting with them to see if they do indeed provide effective medicines. Others are being tested to see if they have any commercial uses that may in the future, provide income for the local village people.

We saw a few different birds and David saw a couple of squirrels but that was it as far as wild life went so we went off to Poring Hot Springs some 40k’s away to have a soak in the thermal bathes. That was pleasant enough and while here we also did another ‘canopy walk’. This one was much more natural. With a tower at each end the actual walkway was made of aluminium ladders bolted together and a plant laid over the top, so that it was quite narrow. From each side a mesh net stretched upward to the rope at the top that formed a hand rail so that should you fall over you would just bounce off the net and still be on the walkway. It is very bouncy to walk on especially when you have several other people on it at the same time.

It was in 4 sections of about 50 to 60m each section. From the tower to a large tree with a platform around it, then on to another tree and so on: At one point we were 40m above the ground but still way below the canopy of the tall forest trees. We saw a few flowers below us and looked down on many lower trees but we saw nothing in particular. The big trees used as anchors are called ‘concrete trees”. They got this name because they are extremely hard but when felled they shatter so that they have no commercial use. Because of this they have been left alone.

The thermal baths at Poring were developed by the Japanese during WW2, the only positive thing their occupation did, so the locals say. There is one very hot pool that is really too hot to jump into so everyone just dips there feet into it from time to time. Then there are a large number of small tubs in groups of 4 and these can be filled to a temperature to suit the individual. Each has a hot and cold tap over it but they only run slowly and so take ages to fill. Each tub comfortably takes two people sitting in it or a family of 6 sitting around the edge. Then there is a fairly large cold water pool to cool off in. It was nice there and as the hot tubs are under cover we didn’t have to worry about being sun burnt.

We were a little lucky in the fact that in the forest near the spring there was one Rafflesia flower out: This is the largest flower in the world and can have a diameter of around 1m, though the one we saw was a little smaller, about 600cm dia. They only last about 5 days and this is not the season for them, they usually flower August to October: This plant had a dead flower beside the open one and nearby there was another bud, but it may be months before the bud opens out. The flower is red with white spots and has a large ‘bowl’ in the middle with the stamen in it. It is said to give off the smell of rotting meat to attract the flies that pollinate it but we couldn’t smell anything. These flowers grow in the same area as the huge bamboos that grow up to 40m high and have stems as thick as 14cm diameter.

Back in KK we booked a flight to Kuching in Sarawak for the next day.

© Lynette Regan April 15^th 2008

Episode 37

Episode 37

Haynes Motor Museum was started by the same man who started the Haynes maintenance manuals for cars. It is in Somerset and we visited it on a fairly quiet afternoon.

I think they must have got a job lot of bright red paint, Ferrari red, according to David, because a great many cars in one room were painted in the same very bright colour with a few others in slightly different reds. The majority of cars in this museum are classics; there are some vintage and veteran cars and some that are quite modern like a new Ferrari and Jaguar. Most are British in manufacture but there are several big American cars from the 1950’s, a few cars from Europe too, and one or two Japanese. All are presented in immaculate condition, a handful are actually replicas of rare cars and some are kit cars. One of those replicas was of the first car ever built back in the 19^th century. I think it is the same one that we have seen on display in a shop window in Vienna. I found it quite interesting to look at cars that I was familiar with as a child back home; cars such as the Ford consul and zephyr, the Austin’s and Morris’s and a few others. A couple of rooms were devoted to old motorbikes and David spent a good while reminiscing over those.

Heading towards Newport Pagnell and a visit with our friend Ria we passed by the white horse near Westbury. This is a large drawing of a horse that is cut into the steep hill side of the downs. I don’t know its measurements but it is very large and can be seen from quite a long distance. It is white as that is the colour of the chalk downs once the grass has been removed. The present horse dates from the 18^th century though it is believed that it was drawn over a much older one that possibly dates from nearly 1000 years earlier. The origins are very unsure but it could have something to do with winning a battle against the Danes. Some way further on in Oxfordshire we saw another, this one is quite different being more of an outline and quite stylized at that; its origins are said to be much older possibly as much as 3000 years old. It is not possible to see this horse properly from the ground so ideally the best way is to take a hot air balloon trip over it, but that would be a summer time thing anyway. It was threatening to rain with a bitterly cold gusty wind on the day we visited still the view over Oxfordshire from this point was very extensive, it looked very pretty with all the green fields and small villages.

As we drove along I noticed that the huge stacks of silage appeared to be almost untouched after the winter so presumably the winter as a whole has been very mild and the animals have been able to graze in the fields most of the time so have not needed the silage. There seems to be some very young lambs about a week or two old and many that are 2 or 3 months old but not much in between.

Newport Pagnell is a village that is part of Milton Keynes and as we drove through the area we passed the concrete cows that have been a feature of the area for many years. A great number of these cows have been stolen over the years and are no doubt adorning the gardens of Mediterranean villas or Reindeer farms in Lapland or maybe someone is putting together a farm of concrete cows, they come is a variety of sizes and painted black and white. The stolen ones have been replaced again and again; someone is perhaps encouraging the thefts so that they are kept in a job replacing them.

Ria, as per usual made us very welcome at her home is this lovely village. Her gentleman friend Brian took all of us on an outing into the Cotswolds one day. The weather was none too accommodating but never-the-less we had a lovely day with a visit to Stow-on-the-Wold where I had once stayed in the youth hostel many years ago and a walk between the villages of Lower and Upper Slaughter then a visit to Bourton-on-the-Water all of which I visited during my stay at Stow. The houses in these Cotswold villages are built of a lovely light cream stone, a very similar colour to our golden sandy beaches at home. When the sun chooses to shine the new building seem to almost glow, they are very pretty. As the stone ages it goes darker to a rich caramel colour or discolours with lichen and mould to a dirty gray colour. All the new houses are built using the same type of stone and usually in a style that blends in well with the rest of the village. Bourton was one of the villages that were badly flooded back in July, the weekend we first arrived in England last year; some of the buildings are still being repaired.

With all sorts of dire weather predicted for Easter we quite pleasantly surprised when Good Friday turned out to be a lovely sunny day but with a chilly wind, still got a couple of light showers through the latter part of the afternoon. Here, in England most of the shops and services are open for business on Good Friday and Saturday, but Sunday will be more like Christmas Day with virtually everything closed.

The weather stayed very changeable right up until the day we left England. We sold the car during the last week and the new owners agreed to take us to Heathrow early on Saturday morning. It was a fairly clear morning and the sun, a glorious orange ball, rose slowly over the tree tops. Heathrow was its usual chaotic self, at least we were departing from terminal 3, not the new BA terminal 5 where nothing seemed to be going to plan.

Our flight left on time and we got a bit of view of the suburbs around the airport before becoming enveloped in cloud that stayed with us the rest of the day as we passed over Europe. We landed in Dubai in the evening and this time got a short while to have a bit of a look about: Several great imitation date palms decorate the hallways and sitting under them on wooden seats, not camels, were some Arabs in white jelabas, their belongings in plastic bags beside them and tapping away at a wifi connected laptop on their knees.

Brunei was hot and sultry when we stepped out of the airport and into the tropical heat that hits almost like a physical force as you emerge from the air-conditioned customs hall. We stayed a couple of nights here but really didn’t see anything new before heading off towards Sabah in Malaysia.

A half hour bus ride, a couple of hours wait, then we passed through immigration and climbed onto the enclosed, narrow and long speed boat that would take us to Pulau Labuan, an island just off the coast of Borneo that is part of Malaysia but a Federally run duty free island, not really a part of Sabah or Sarawak. We had another wait before finally leaving and an hour later arrived in Banda Labuan, the town and port on the island. Unlike most of the other passenger we decided to stay overnight here before continuing on towards Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.

It was on this island that the Japanese forces in Borneo finally surrendered to the allies at the end of WW2. A large war cemetery here is the final resting place for a large number of Australian and British servicemen. We also visited a large Chinese temple that is currently undergoing extensions and we watched some craftsmen at work doing the bas relief on the pillars. They were making the dragons and flowers that wind about the pillars using a fine mortar. The ceiling was moulded and decorated using a vast amount of gold leaf and most of the rest of the interior was tiled in bright lemon yellow shinny tiles.

Took a fast speed boat ferry to Kota Kinabalu: The crossing was smooth but the air-conditioning was freezing, I needed defrosting when we arrived but once outside in the humid heat I soon thawed: this is a fairly big city surrounded by jungle and to the north is the massive bulk of Mt Kinabalu but I haven’t seen it yet. The mountain is the highest in Borneo and the highest in Southeast Asia at around 4100m. Not sure if I’m going to try and climb it yet, I haven’t had much in the way of exercise for a long time so I think it might be a bit too much for me. David probably wouldn’t be able to cope with that altitude though he has been up to that height years ago.

KK is a typical Asian city with a mixture of markets and market stalls selling everything imaginable and many things that are unimaginable and certainly unidentifiable. The smell of dried fish hanging in the stalls is overwhelming and permeates everywhere just as it does in the supermarkets back in Portugal. Mix with that the odour of a vast variety of meats and vegetables cooking on the small street stalls, the smell of spices and the general foul smell of the city and you about have it. The streets have been swept and are fairly free from garbage but not from cats, there are cats of all colours, shapes and sizes everywhere, even less flies than cats. Spread around the city are a number of air-conditioned shopping malls where its possible to find all the top brand names that you find anywhere in the world.

We walked through the late afternoon fish market and saw the massive array of fresh fish and seafood on offer from fish of all sizes to large piles of squid, many rays, and very large prawns. One wonders for how much longer this sort of catch can be sustained.

It seems to rain most afternoons or evenings, that heavy tropical rain that dumps an enormous amount of water in a short space of time then clears away leaving the air fresh and clean. Listening to the traffic report on the radio at the hostel it sounds as if Kuala Lumpur is badly flooded today and the traffic is in chaos, glad we aren’t there.

While in the city we visited the museum that is situated in some quite modern buildings not far from the centre of the city. There are some interesting displays on natural history, the birds, animals, insects, butterflies, fish and sea mammals. Probably far more here than we will get to see in real life: Some archaeology too; pottery burial jars that have come to light on a river bank and probably date from about the 16^th century, and other bits and pieces of pottery that is of Chinese origin. Evidence in some caves of human habitation in this part of Borneo for at least the last 3000 years:

A large display is devoted to the Japanese occupation of the Island during WW2; there were some POW camps here and of course the famous death march from Sandakan on which all the prisoners perished except for 6 Australians who I believed escaped that is how they managed to survive. It is only through them that anything is known of this march; apparently the Japanese didn’t record the event at all.

In the grounds of the museum we looked into a number of native houses that have been constructed. They come from a number of different tribes but are all quite similar in layout. Built up off the ground they have bamboo flooring that allows for the breeze to circulate through the floor, and they all have a veranda on the front and a cooking and eating area at the rear. The walls are timber or bamboo and the roof is a thatch with the rattan vine used to tie things together. In another building we saw a display on the railway that was once constructed here; there is still a small section of line that is used from Kota Kinabalu to Beaufort. The display covered the development of railway in Britain too. Another display I found interesting was one on radio, it even had an old radio studio and TV studio set-up in the room showing equipment from the 1950’s and 1960’s. A large area is an art gallery devoted to local artists covering a range of painting styles and some of the work here is very good.

I mentioned the POW camp at Sandakand a few paragraphs back, there is also a large Australian War Memorial there and this coming ANZAC day there will be a big service there.

We left KK one Friday morning and caught the bus to Sepilok over near the east coast. Our route took us along the main road past Mount Kinabalu that at the time of day we passed was covered in cloud. Our ticket cost included a small bottle of water and a midday meal at a roadside restaurant. The big air conditioned bus was equipped with video that showed a movie for those that wanted to watch it, I preferred the passing scenery. Fortunately the video wasn’t too loud nor the aircon too cold.

We passed through many small villages; in fact the road side has houses or stalls nearly all the way. In the vicinity of the mountain there are some valleys that are intensely farmed and roadside stalls hereabouts sell fresh produce from these farms. Most of the land has been cleared of its native forest, just as in every other country in the world, and where it is not being farmed the land has been invaded by thick, green fast growing shrubs and vines that are really pests and strangle or prevent any native timber from regrowing.

As we got a bit further to the east we came into the large oil palm plantations and wherever you look all you can see are the lines of oil palms marching off in all directions. Thick vines cover the ground and grow into the trees so there must be quite a lot of work involved in clearing this vine out of the trees from time to time. The plantations we saw ranged from those with mature trees to those that have just been planted. In one place we saw that they are harvesting the palm nuts, these come in large bunches that weigh about 10kg and consist of a great many roundish shaped fruit the size of a large marble, generally black in colour but shading to a yellow colour near the base of the bunch. I cannot say if one tree produces one bunch or several or how long they take to mature but I can say that the margarine here is made using palm oil and it tastes ‘bloody awful’.

At Sepolik we visited the Orang-utan sanctuary: This is one of the rehabilitation centres where orphaned young ones are raised and then gradually weaned from being feed by humans until they can fend for themselves in the jungle. The process takes about 7 years and involves many stages. The babies have to be fed every few hours and they must be taught the skills that their mothers would normally teach them such as climbing and what food to eat.

We watched a video on all this training but the only thing we could see was a feeding session. There are two feeding sessions each day and they take place a few hundred metres from the visitors centre. All us visitors and there was a great many of us, could go out to a viewing area where, at one of the trees there is a feeding platform and long ropes leading to it from the large trees in this nature reserve. The ropes are for the orang-utan to come along to the feeding platform so that they don’t have to come over the muddy ground or do damage to the lower branches of the trees by using them too much. The ones that come here for some food have been released into the nearby forest and can find food for themselves and sleep in the trees but have the reassurance of getting food here if they want it. Some days many come along, on other days only one or two may come, it is unpredictable how many will turn up.

Six different ones turned up for us as well as several long tailed macaques, another type of monkey: Orang-utans are similar to the chimpanzees and gorillas in that they have no tail. They have longish fur of a reddish brown colour. At a guess I would say they would be about 1200 to 1500mm (4ft to 5ft) tall and their arms are very long and stretchy and flexible for climbing and swinging their way through the jungle. I liked the way they would just hang onto the rope with one hand, feed on some bananas they were holding in the other hand and cast their eye over all us tourists who were watching them. The chap who brought the food also had a bucket of milk and each one that came had a drink of this milk. The macaques know an easy meal is to be had and make sure they get some too even if it means stealing some from an orang-utan who is departing with a handful of bananas.

Here at Sepolik there is also a rainforest discovery centre. A brand new short section of very heavy rigid ‘canopy walk’ has just been built and wasn’t yet open. We had been told that we could climb the tower but not walk along the walkway as it hadn’t been officially opened. When we got there we did what everyone else was doing and walked along it, not that there was much to see really, just looking down on the trees instead of up into them. Several towers have been constructed but only one short section of walkway about 100m long between two towers is finished. It certainly is not ‘low impact’. Big areas have been cleared for each tower and the area under the walkway has been cleared to make way for the heavy steel supports, it would dam near carry a train it looks that strong.

At this centre there are some walks and a lovely botanical section that has a massive range of plants that is divided into sections for each species. Small signs gave information about the plant, its habitat and how it may be used. I found it really interesting and we spend ages here. The display of orchids was beautiful even though it isn’t the main flowering season for them; there was an area full of pitcher plants too. These are wonderful plants that can grow on very poor soils because they obtain their nutrients from catching insects in its ‘pitcher’. Many of these are very tiny but here in Borneo they also have a very large one that has a ‘pitcher’ that can hold 3.5lt of fluid. These large ones are found in the Poring Springs area and it has been know for these plants to catch the local rats. The insects, and the rats too, are attracted to the plant by a sweet smelling solution that it excretes. They eat this solution and fall into the pitcher and can’t climb out because downward facing spikes prevent their escape. They drown and are dissolved by the liquid and absorbed into the plant. Very clever I think: The pitcher is really an extension of the leaf:

©Lynette Regan 15^th April 2008

Episode 36

Episode 36

The high peaks of Montserrat are very aptly named for indeed the whole outline of the mountain does appear very serrated from all directions.

We drove up into the nation park where there are a number of hotels and a monastery at around the 750m level. From this point there are some paths upward and a funicular, a particularly steep one. Going down from this point there is a cable car and another funicular.

Being well into the afternoon when we arrived here we took the funicular up to its top station, a view point with great views over the city of Barcelona 50k’s away to the east, the Mediterranean, and the Pyrenees to the north. Unfortunately it was very hazy and we couldn’t even see Barcelona, let alone anywhere further away. We did a couple of short walks, all we had time for but because of the haze the views were not better at the higher points. There were a lot of people up on the mountain with backpacks and camping gear set for a couple of days of hiking I expect.

In some ways it resembled Torres del Paine in Chile except that the peaks here are more soft and rounded, but the whole place has a similar form. Here the rock is conglomerate and siltstone and sandstone, it was all once on the bottom of a sea. At some point in time it has been up-lifted and folded and the wind, rain, and ice have weathered it into what we see now. The high bare upper rock has formed into huge fat vertical columns. There are some that have been given names because of there odd shapes, the pregnant woman, and the elephant (that is a really good one), there are others that resemble faces and other forms.

On a warm sunny morning we drove into Barcelona. Parked the car in a parking station then we set off on foot to have a look around this city. Possibly founded as early as 230BC it has been occupied by the Romans, Visigoths, the Muslims before being retaken by the Christians in the 1140’s. Modern Barcelona with its population of around 1.5 million is a bustling city with some broad avenues, tree lined, and many narrow dark and dingy streets. In the oldest part of the city there are lots of narrow alleys too.

La Rambla is a long wide street with a pedestrian walkway down the centre that is lined with tourist stalls, open air cafes, buskers and very crowded, mostly tourists. Some of the buskers can be quiet entertaining. On either side there are shops that sell just about everything, hostels, hotels, a food market and a flower market. At the south-eastern end where it meets the water front stands a tall column as a monument to Christopher Columbus. Just across from that is the rather attractive looking Port building, possibly an old customs house but we couldn’t find out for sure. Then there is a very large and full marina and an aquarium amongst other things on the broad walks along the water front.

In a tent set up in this area we saw a display about the Barcelona ‘round the world’ yacht race that hasn’t quite finished yet. It started on the 11^th of November and the first yachts to finish arrived back here about the 9^th of February. They sailed down the west coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, through the southern ocean south of Australia, through Cook Strait between the North and South Islands of NZ then around Cape Horne and back to here without making landfall along the way. Each yacht had only two crew:

We meandered through the old city and admired some of the lovely old buildings. Although most buildings are around 10 stories high there are very few really high buildings in the city, and none of them are in this area. Most of these are 19^th and early 20^th century, though there are some older ones. Some have a tower at a corner or some sculptures around them. One had several pictures embossed on one wall. It was hard to get a good look at them as the street was very narrow and they were up quite high.

The Cathedral was completely swathed in scaffolding and gauze with a painted rendition of what it might look like on the gauze. It was closed at the time we passed by and no-one seemed too certain at what time it might re-open. A small section of the old Roman wall was visible too.

A little further on we saw a very pretty building painted in soft pastel shades that highlighted the sculptures and mouldings all around the exterior so that they appeared like cameos above the plaster surface. It was 2 to 3 stories high and also had stained glass windows. It was locked up tight so we did what everyone else was doing and peered through the large windows to see some of the interior. The lobby ceiling was vaulted and corded with the cording highlighted in a dark paint and the pink marble stair case had amber uprights in the balustrade. It is called Palau del Baro de Quadras and used to house a museum of musical instruments but no longer does so.

Probably the most spectacular site is the still unfinished church known as ‘The Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia’. Sort of looks a bit like a medieval cathedral that lost the plot somehow. It’s not very old, it was begun in 1882 funded by a wealthy publisher and with one architect who had simple tastes but he was replaced two years later by Antoni Gaude who didn’t like straight lines so everything is curves in one form or another.

One each end are a number of conical shaped spires that appear to me to be honeycombed, they reach about 75m above the ground. In the design there is to be one that will be double that in height: On the north eastern end that appears to be the oldest there are three recessed archways full of carvings that depict Christs birth and childhood. To me when I looked up at them I got the impression I was looking into caves. Apparently Gaudi did much of this sculpture himself. There is much scaffolding on the outside where there is on going work and even more inside where only part of the recently built transept can be seen. The tall pillars here appear to branch out after 20m and soar another 10m or more to give the impression of trees branching into shell like mouldings that form the inside of the roof. The floor is cluttered with the form work that was used to make those mouldings. There is plenty of light to see here as there are no windows in place yet and the roof is not complete. The remainder of the interior is all scaffolding except for one small chapel that is used for services.

In the crypt is a display of old photos showing progress on construction from its earliest years as well as plaster models of various parts of the building and lots of other information about the place and the people who had a hand in its construction.

Looking at it from the outside there is a vast contrast between the stone used in the early part of the constructions and the concrete being used now, as I’m sure there is a vast difference in the equipment that was used to the great cranes that are now being used to finish off the high towers. Although in recent years there has been quite a lot of progress in the construction it is not in imminent danger of being finished though with the number of tourists who visited the place there should be ample funds to do so. It was quite crowded now, what it must be like in the summer I dread to think; for those that dearly desired to visit the tower the wait was at least 1 hours. A view this place their website is: www.sagradafamilia.org

In the late afternoon with a thundering headache we headed back to the car, our need to escape the city out-weighing our desire to see more of it so before the traffic got too bad we headed off out of the city and back into the wooded hill to camp the night in the pine forest. The smell of pine and rosemary, a much nicer combination than the odours of the city:

Now we are heading up into the Pyrenees and across the border into France again. On Friday the 29^th Feb we are booked on a ferry from Boulogne-sur-mer to Dover and then back to Arundel. Heather, our long suffering friend there will by then, have returned from her sojourn in the sun in Borneo.

Climbing up through the Pyrenees we crossed the border into France. Along the way we passed a few resort villages, they are probably ski resorts except that there isn’t any snow here for skiing. Just to the north is one of the highest mountains in the Pyrenees, Pic de Conigou at nearly 2900m. On the east-west axis of the ridge there is a little snow to be seen on the high tops, the south facing flank is free from snow, the north facing flank, we later saw, has just a smattering of snow on the high slopes, not near enough for skiing. There were a few people about in the villages but also many places closed up. Lower down in the wooded hills we passed through a forest of cork and holm oak trees and despite the repeated signs for deer all we saw were two alpaca and a field full of mole hills.

In many of the villages we saw wattles in full bloom, I think most were a black wattle, the one with a fern type leaf, but a few were Cootamundra wattles or something very similar. On a couple of hillsides there were plantations of wattles, each of about 5acres (2 hectares), they stood out like giant yellow flags. The fruit trees are also in blossom, we passed through a valley where most were either in full bloom or starting to bloom. They were all shades of bright pink. In household gardens the purple magnolias are flowering too. A few more days of this really warm weather and the trees will be in leaf. I can’t believe that it is only February as I have not needed my pullover to walk about and I’ve been wearing only sandals, despite the fact that we pass people wearing heavy coats and boot. Being the weekend the cyclists are all and about, thousands of them riding up and down the mountains, perhaps they are all training for the ‘tour de France’.

David spotted a sign to a gorge so we went and had a look. It was very pretty; gray rock with green shrubs growing in the crevices and sheltered spots. A narrow winding road clung to the edge of the narrow chasm about 35m above the stream with the high peaks towering another 80m or so above. This is Gorges de Galamus. After about 4k the valley suddenly opened out into farmland.

I did notice that it appears to be quite dry in the mountains. The streams are a mere trickle, possibly that is normal at this time of year but if they are depending on melting snow to boost them in the spring then they are going to be sorely disappointed unless one hell of a lot of snow falls soon. There is barely enough up there at present to fill a tea cup.

Near the town of Millau there is a massive viaduct on the motor way. We saw it from a distance and passed right underneath. It’s a type of suspension bridge and the pylons reach 370m high; about 100m of that is above the road level. It is very long too: We had been following the Tarn River upstream past as series of dams with small hydro stations in a narrow, steep, pine clad valley. These dams are nearly full unlike the Spanish ones.

Not far further on we came to the gorges of the Tarn River. The Tarn and Jonte Rivers almost encircle an area of limestone plateau .There is a gap of about 15 to 20k’s between the sources of both rivers then the Jonte flows due west while the Tarn flows north, then west, then south, to a point where they join and become the Tarn near the town of Le Rozier. There are a number of caves in the area and a large sink hole but they are all closed at this time of year. We could drive through the gorges and they are really pretty with the shallow sandy river at the bottom, sheer limestone cliffs above with trees and shrubs growing out of nooks and crannies. A few villages cling to the sides of the gorges too, they blend in really well with their surroundings as they are built of local stone and have slate roofs that are discoloured with mosses and mould. There was a chateau too on the bank of the river.

Although the plateau reaches up to around the 1000m mark there was no snow and it was quite warm, some distance further north past the town of Mende where we got up around 1300m we saw just a little snow left in the sheltered areas. Looking eastwards towards the Alps we saw a few snowy high mountain tops but it was so warm here that I wondered how the snow had managed to last this long.

I will try and tell you something of the difference between the Spanish and French villages. In Spain most of the housing is in unit or flats in two and three story buildings in small villages, much higher blocks in larger towns; in France, in the area that we have passed though so far over the last few days, although there are some units or flats mostly there are more separate houses with small gardens. In Spain in most places the buildings were nearly all whitewashed though in the north of the country we did encounter many that were built of stone or were painted in earthy colours. Nearly every building had an orange/terracotta roof. In France they don’t go in for the whitewash, they use the soft earthy colours when the places are painted or use local stone. Most of the roofs are gray slate. Some of the slate we have seen is really thick, 3 to 4cm so the roofs must be really heavy, no wonder they always seem to be sagging in the middle.

In this area too we have seen some little stone buildings with large wood fired ovens in one end. We have not yet been able to work out what they are used for but perhaps they use them to smoke ham. In Spain there were many villages that specialled in their own locally smoked hams. The pigs there are fed on the acorns of the holm and cork oaks and produce a ham of distinctive flavour. In this part of France the forest is mainly deciduous oak and pine so perhaps the pigs here too are fed on the acorns.

The days continued to be warm, especially so for this time of year and the willow trees are coming into leaf and the forsythia beginning to flower, (at least I think it is forsythia), it is bright yellow. Plenty of sheep and lambs in the fields along with cows and horses and the spring crops are growing well. All the garden centres seem to be quite busy so I think spring must be in the air.

We have driven along beside and crossed over several canals, France is crisscrossed by canals; there aren’t many boats on them at present but when summer comes they will be crowded with pleasure craft. These canals must be stocked with fish; we have noticed a few people sitting in the sunshine on grassy banks fishing.

Since we have a time limit we have not been above to spend much time looking about places. In a couple of towns we have seen Chateaux and castles but most places are still closed. Even the tourist information places are mostly closed, yet those that are open have told us that they are quite busy with people phoning and faxing for information.

Driving northward across France skirting around Paris to the east of the city we passed through one after another pleasant French village. These villages we found quite nice they didn’t appear bland as those we had passed through on the way south. Each seemed to have a little character with a bakers and butchers and a coffee shop along the main road though we saw very few people moving about. In an English village at 10am there would be heaps of activity around the streets with people shopping or workmen attending to things but in these French villages it was hard to spot anyone; didn’t even see kids going to or coming home from school; what do they all do? Farmers on tractors are a common sight, usually we see them when trying to negotiate a very narrow road, they are invariably coming towards us with a huge great trailer or combine behind and we have to pull off into a hedge or something to let them pass.

The country was mainly rolling farmland with plenty of pasture and crops; we did pass through an area where there were quite a lot of dairy farms and another valley that was full of grape vines but generally it was agricultural country. The last couple of days we had a lot of drizzle most of the time.

It was on a dreary and cold morning that we caught the ferry back to England. We were almost back in Dover before we could see the white cliffs; the sea wasn’t rough but very gray and daunting looking. Low cloud and drizzle accompanied us all the way back to Arundel. The daffodils were all in bloom along with the primroses and hyacinths, the forsythia was coming out and the snow drops had virtually finished. Big areas of golden daffodils everywhere!

Since we’ve been back we haven’t really done much. Went down to Cornwall again, saw Sharon, David’s cousin who had been out to Burnett Heads in our absence and caught up on her experiences whilst there. We also went back for another look around the Eden Project. Again the weather wasn’t very nice with overcast skies. Here too the spring flowers were out in force with great swathes of daffodils from the tiny miniature ones to great tall giant ones. Some have the very deep almost orange centres whilst others are almost white. We came upon an area where several Australian tree ferns are growing. A small notice here tells that they were planted last year and gives the story of how they came to get here; it seems that they arrived in England in a consignment that didn’t have all the proper documentation so they were confiscated by Customs and Quarantine (or the British equivalent) and distributed to parks, gardens and charitable projects such as this Eden Project right around the country. Being a plant it seems that you don’t get deported if you come without your proper paperwork:

The Eden Project will celebrate its birthday on 17^th March; it opened to the public on that date in 2001 apparently.

The night we stayed with Sharon near Launceston there was a very bad storm on the north coast of Cornwall although we did get rain and fairly strong winds we were sheltered from the worse of it. When we visited Port Isaacs the next day we found that the road to the next village had been washed away to a large extent so there was no longer vehicle access into that village. At least that will give the residents a traffic free Easter. Port Isaacs is the picturesque little village facing a tiny bay that was used as a setting for the television series ‘Doc Martin’. The houses are built of a light gray stone with slate roofs, mosses and lichens grow on the roofs making them appear almost like tiny gardens. One narrow road descends into the village separated from the cliffs either by a stone wall or by some small houses and shops that cling to the cliff edge with a pounding surf bashing itself against the rocks below. For the privilege of parking your car on the sandy beach at the bottom, only possible when the tide is out, you must pay the princely sum of £2.

From the fast flowing stream that flows into the bay the village spreads up the steep hills on both sides with the houses accessed by a number of steep narrow alleyways. One of these is Temple Bar said to be the narrowest thoroughfare in the world at only 18 inches (450mm) wide in one part. Not only is it very narrow by it is also very low as a house is built over the top so that people like David have to bend to pass through the passage.

It was almost deserted on this blustery, cold and wet afternoon, we tried to find a postcard but the only place we found to be open was the post office and that was limited to just post office business as the rest of the shop was is the process of being redecorated and had nothing else for sale. We were told that most places would be opening on the 17^th for the start of the school holidays and the Easter break but on this afternoon the place seemed pretty well deserted.

Travelling along the north coast of Devon we called in at Clovelly where we found a car park above the ‘traffic free’ town that charges £10 for parking whether it be for 5mins whilst you pop into the tourist information office or 10 hours whilst you walk around the coast. To us this seemed a bit over the odds so we drove back out and went along to the next and much more tourist friendly town.

At a small place called Westwardho we watched the surf breaking against the sea wall. The 3 to 4m waves were rolling in and crashing against the wall sending spray high into the air. It must have been unusual as many local people were out photographing these waves. Many holiday units and a park full of demountable caravans are positioned just a few feet above the sea level and no doubt being sprayed with sea water from time to time. If sea levels should rise then it won’t take much for these demountables to become ‘house boats’. The wild seas continued all along that north coast of Devon.

© Lynette Regan 17^th March 2008