After settling into Perth, we were craving another adventure holiday, so we took off to Sabah, one of the Malaysian areas on the island of Borneo, for 2 weeks. Our first activity was to hike to the top of Mt Kinabalu, 4095mt. It's no where near as high as Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa, but this meant we could do it in 1.5 days. It was still a nice little challenge - especially the down part - whoa, our quads were sore for 3 days after! In fact as we continued our journey around Sabah, we could pick the others who'd recently hiked Kinabalu as they too were also hobbling around like they were 100 years old.
We stayed the night before the hike in the Kinabalu National Park which we pre-booked thru Sutera Sanctuary Lodges. As it was Easter when we were going to be hiking, accommodation was pretty tightly booked. Bookings in advance are required for most times of the year as over 40,000 people hike the Mt each year.
We stayed the night before the hike in the Kinabalu National Park which we pre-booked thru Sutera Sanctuary Lodges. As it was Easter when we were going to be hiking, accommodation was pretty tightly booked. Bookings in advance are required for most times of the year as over 40,000 people hike the Mt each year.
The National Park is beautiful in itself - lots of hiking trails, lush, tropical vegetation, streams etc. And of course the gorgeous Mt looming in the distance.
We shared our guide (compulsory for the hike) with a honeymooning couple from Melbourne, and 9:00 am the next day, we started out on the way up to Laban Rata where we would spend our next night (well half of it) on the mountain.
Going up!
We arrived at Laban Rata at about 2pm that afternoon - pretty good time and our legs were feeling good. We were only carrying daypacks, so had fairly light loads. Got some nice sunset photos from the main lodge, had dinner and a beer and chatted to other hikers from all over the world. We went to bed early (8:30 pm) as we had a 1 am wake up time and 2am departure for the top.
Going up the ropes. dawn breaking on the summit. ahhh we made it to the top. Above the clouds.
What goes up must come down.
We arrived at Laban Rata at about 2pm that afternoon - pretty good time and our legs were feeling good. We were only carrying daypacks, so had fairly light loads. Got some nice sunset photos from the main lodge, had dinner and a beer and chatted to other hikers from all over the world. We went to bed early (8:30 pm) as we had a 1 am wake up time and 2am departure for the top.
Sunset and an early morning departure to the summit.
Sean and I arrived at the summit (4095 mts) just before sunrise (about 6 am), so we sheltered from the wind until the sun rose. While waiting we saw this awesome storm happening below us - with lightening, dark clouds and rain. And to the east was the rising sun and to the west was the fading moon. We felt like God sitting on top of his beautiful world, above the clouds and watching everything going on as a new day dawned. That was was my most memorable, awe-inspiring moment of the hike.
Sean and I arrived at the summit (4095 mts) just before sunrise (about 6 am), so we sheltered from the wind until the sun rose. While waiting we saw this awesome storm happening below us - with lightening, dark clouds and rain. And to the east was the rising sun and to the west was the fading moon. We felt like God sitting on top of his beautiful world, above the clouds and watching everything going on as a new day dawned. That was was my most memorable, awe-inspiring moment of the hike.
Going up the ropes. dawn breaking on the summit. ahhh we made it to the top. Above the clouds.
What goes up must come down.
It took us 6 hrs to get back down to the same gate that we left the National Park from. There were 1000s of steps, all unevenly spaced, so we definitely loved having our hiking sticks. Neither of us could remember this many steps on the way up! My quads were burning, but at least after this mountain I kept all my toe nails!
After we collected our luggage (which we'd left at the Park headquarters) we hopped a bus to the Poring hotsprings about an hour and bit away. They were disappointing - we thought we'd be soaking our aching muscles in these natural hot springs, but instead it was these dirty old tiled baths with taps that you had to turn on for the water and wait for them to fill up (and many of them didn't work). Being the Easter holiday, all the locals were there soaking in their underwear - eeeewww!
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