Sunday Jul 31
We made it to the airport in plenty of time to catch our 90 min flight to Kuching and so did Kim and Syd, all the way from Jurong, though they cut it a bit finer. We had a hire car waiting for us at the airport, and Eric got behind the wheel again. It was then we realised we had no idea where we were going. No map in the glovebox. No sim in the phones to get Google maps. We had to call the owner of the house, who luckily lived just nearby, and she turned up and we followed her there. In fact at one point we nearly ended up in her boot as Eric discovered our breaks are not exactly touchy. The house in Jalan Hup Kee was huge; 3 bedrooms (each with ensuites), massive downstairs lounge and kitchen. We tucked into nibbles and drinks then hit the sack.
Mon Aug 1
I was up at 5.30 because I wanted to have breakfast before the birding tour picked 4 of us up at 6.30. Good thing I was, because he arrived at 6. I quickly roused the others and we made a hasty departure, but had to wake the other 2 because the key to the gate was in a pocket in their room. Sorry about that Syd. Yeo our guide, and Is our driver, took us to Kubah National Park, only 22kms from Town. This is situated on a massive sandstone ridge with three mountain peaks – the 911m high Gunung Serapi and the slightly smaller Gunung Selang and Gunung Sendok all easily easily seen from the Kuching Waterfront. It was interesting to see the number of cars on the road at that hour of the morning. You would expect it to be pretty quiet but many people were driving their children to school for the 7am start. Yeo's interest in birds developed when he used a pair of binoculars for the first time in his 20's. From that time on he has been expanding his interest in the animals of the local area, their behaviours and especially the bird calls. It was such an advantage to have his expertise as he used his knowledge to identify the calls, then draw the birds to us using recordings. We were able to identify more than 20 different species in the morning and most of them were new sightings for us. In the thick tree cover there was no chance we would have seen all these birds without his help. The 3 different leaf birds, Diard's trogon, red bearded bee eater, Raffles malkoha and white crowned hornbills were the standouts. More than 50 bird species, bearded pigs, sambar deer, mouse deer, civets, porcupines, squirrels and numerous species of amphibians and reptiles live in this rich forest. Most of the mammals are nocturnal so we saw only squirrels. Below is the lesser leafbird on the left, nesting female Asian Paradise Flycatcher.
Above is the gorgeous trunk of a eucalyptus, the red billed malkoha and the red bearded bee eater.
By the time we got home we were starving. Syd and Kim had been out hunting and gathering but returned with eggs and bread only to discover that there was no frypan or toasting facility. We had a quick cup of tea together then found lunch in a shopping mall food court not too far from home. We bought some more groceries on the way home, then spent the afternoon solving the world's most immediate problems. Fortunately we did that before imbibing in alcohol or some among us might not have taken it seriously.
In the evening Kym drove us downtown and we walked along the river to the James Brooke's restaurant.
We were all very happy with out meals served on the balcony overlooking the river with a pleasant breeze keeping it comfortable. It is amazing to realise that it was 2007, almost 10 years ago that we first came here, and 2009 when we were last here. The new parliament building has since been completed and looks impressive. There does look to be a lot of development since we were last here, certainly more cars on the road. To end the night we walked home through the small Chinatown section before heading home. I crashed. It has been a long day and Eric was not far behind me.
Tue Aug 2nd
June had to return to Sg as she now works Wednesday's at OrangeTree Pre School, a separate division of Morris Allen. Kim drove her to the airport then after breakfast the rest of us walked through the Memorial Gardens and extensive grounds of the reservoir which lie adjacent to the Sarawak Museum. We were looking for birds but found few, however it was relatively cool and overcast so very pleasant.
We visited the Natural History section of the museum but the rest was closed for restaurant ion. Then we drove downtown for a coffee, to shop and then found lunch near Chinatown.
We arrived home to find a small plumbing problem, water was dripping through the laundry ceiling, but we couldn't locate the source so called the owner and proceeded with our afternoon siesta. In the evening we had plans for dinner downtown but settled for take away from the local shopping mall and cleaned up what was left over from our somewhat over zealous initial shopping spree.
After an uncomfortable night, I was quite unwell then next morning but just kept hoping things would get better. They didn't, and I had a terrible flight home and had to take the afternoon off work. Got myself to the doctor when he opened in the evening and he gave me something for the fever and griping stomach so by Thursday things were much better. Can't blame the pizza, everyone else ate it without a problem, but there are a number of bugs going around so guess it was just another one of those.
We made it to the airport in plenty of time to catch our 90 min flight to Kuching and so did Kim and Syd, all the way from Jurong, though they cut it a bit finer. We had a hire car waiting for us at the airport, and Eric got behind the wheel again. It was then we realised we had no idea where we were going. No map in the glovebox. No sim in the phones to get Google maps. We had to call the owner of the house, who luckily lived just nearby, and she turned up and we followed her there. In fact at one point we nearly ended up in her boot as Eric discovered our breaks are not exactly touchy. The house in Jalan Hup Kee was huge; 3 bedrooms (each with ensuites), massive downstairs lounge and kitchen. We tucked into nibbles and drinks then hit the sack.
Mon Aug 1
I was up at 5.30 because I wanted to have breakfast before the birding tour picked 4 of us up at 6.30. Good thing I was, because he arrived at 6. I quickly roused the others and we made a hasty departure, but had to wake the other 2 because the key to the gate was in a pocket in their room. Sorry about that Syd. Yeo our guide, and Is our driver, took us to Kubah National Park, only 22kms from Town. This is situated on a massive sandstone ridge with three mountain peaks – the 911m high Gunung Serapi and the slightly smaller Gunung Selang and Gunung Sendok all easily easily seen from the Kuching Waterfront. It was interesting to see the number of cars on the road at that hour of the morning. You would expect it to be pretty quiet but many people were driving their children to school for the 7am start. Yeo's interest in birds developed when he used a pair of binoculars for the first time in his 20's. From that time on he has been expanding his interest in the animals of the local area, their behaviours and especially the bird calls. It was such an advantage to have his expertise as he used his knowledge to identify the calls, then draw the birds to us using recordings. We were able to identify more than 20 different species in the morning and most of them were new sightings for us. In the thick tree cover there was no chance we would have seen all these birds without his help. The 3 different leaf birds, Diard's trogon, red bearded bee eater, Raffles malkoha and white crowned hornbills were the standouts. More than 50 bird species, bearded pigs, sambar deer, mouse deer, civets, porcupines, squirrels and numerous species of amphibians and reptiles live in this rich forest. Most of the mammals are nocturnal so we saw only squirrels. Below is the lesser leafbird on the left, nesting female Asian Paradise Flycatcher.
By the time we got home we were starving. Syd and Kim had been out hunting and gathering but returned with eggs and bread only to discover that there was no frypan or toasting facility. We had a quick cup of tea together then found lunch in a shopping mall food court not too far from home. We bought some more groceries on the way home, then spent the afternoon solving the world's most immediate problems. Fortunately we did that before imbibing in alcohol or some among us might not have taken it seriously.
In the evening Kym drove us downtown and we walked along the river to the James Brooke's restaurant.
We were all very happy with out meals served on the balcony overlooking the river with a pleasant breeze keeping it comfortable. It is amazing to realise that it was 2007, almost 10 years ago that we first came here, and 2009 when we were last here. The new parliament building has since been completed and looks impressive. There does look to be a lot of development since we were last here, certainly more cars on the road. To end the night we walked home through the small Chinatown section before heading home. I crashed. It has been a long day and Eric was not far behind me.
Tue Aug 2nd
June had to return to Sg as she now works Wednesday's at OrangeTree Pre School, a separate division of Morris Allen. Kim drove her to the airport then after breakfast the rest of us walked through the Memorial Gardens and extensive grounds of the reservoir which lie adjacent to the Sarawak Museum. We were looking for birds but found few, however it was relatively cool and overcast so very pleasant.
We visited the Natural History section of the museum but the rest was closed for restaurant ion. Then we drove downtown for a coffee, to shop and then found lunch near Chinatown.
We arrived home to find a small plumbing problem, water was dripping through the laundry ceiling, but we couldn't locate the source so called the owner and proceeded with our afternoon siesta. In the evening we had plans for dinner downtown but settled for take away from the local shopping mall and cleaned up what was left over from our somewhat over zealous initial shopping spree.
After an uncomfortable night, I was quite unwell then next morning but just kept hoping things would get better. They didn't, and I had a terrible flight home and had to take the afternoon off work. Got myself to the doctor when he opened in the evening and he gave me something for the fever and griping stomach so by Thursday things were much better. Can't blame the pizza, everyone else ate it without a problem, but there are a number of bugs going around so guess it was just another one of those.
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