After 2 weeks on expedition I joined Naomi in the forest for
Banteng night watch duty. Naomi had already been in the forest for 2 weeks when
I joined her but thunder and lightning every night had put night watch duty on
hold nearly the entire time. This stormy weather continued for the duration of
my stay in the forest meaning Night watch duty turned into some much-needed
hours of work being done!
The lack of night duty meant we could get some running done
in the early mornings before the sun got too high in the sky. On the second run
the early morning and I didn’t get along too well as I stumbled, nearly saved
my fall, stumbled again, nearly saved it again and then fell over, much to
Naomi’s entertainment but resulting in a cut hand. Luckily we were running back
towards the house so we our run wasn’t ruined. Back at the house we put our
first aid certificates to use washing my hand under the tap, and putting on
antiseptic cream and a plaster, it got my out of washing up for a few days too!
Post run picture complete with bad hand!
On one morning Naomi and I went for a walk logging for
Banteng signs and dung, we walked along
the path by the house and just when we were about to turn around I
spotted a large flattened patch of grass where a banteng had been resting the
night before. So we decided to walk a bit further and found a really fresh
massive banteng dung, most likely from a very large male that morning,
unfortunately, or maybe fortunately we didn’t manage to see the individual. I
love being up and awake in the early mornings here, all the insects are busy, the birds all waking up and the
weather still cool, walks at this time of the day are truly beautiful. On a walk one morning we found a large fresh banteng dung and very close to it a very large flattened patch of grass, where are banteng had be lay resting only a few hours earlier.
A plus side of being house bound was that my banteng forage project finally got some attention, I managed to get all my plant specimens mounted and get on with my write up, this also meant I had to get to grips with R, the software for my data analysis. Here is a picture of me taking over the main room as I sorted through all my specimens checking I didn't have 2 of the same, not that easy when you have 70!
Insanity-10 days of being stuck. After 8 days in the house
with a few hours of laptop battery to get work done in the day, the genset
running all night and food down to rice, eggs, baked beans, sweetcorn and
sardines, Naomi and i reached the point of crazyness. Luckily we had for seen
this point and warned Jo who had sent a huge tin of peaches into the forest
with the forestry staff. The peaches arrived complete with label “In the event
of insanity open and consume Immediately”.. so when the point of insanity was
reached we did as was instructed.. serves 7... more like gone in 7 minutes!
The end of my time in the forest saw some spectacular
thunder storms that light up the room and shake the house whilst deafening you
with the rain hammering the roof. It rained so hard that the rivers were
impassable meaning Naomi and I packed up all our things to leave and then had
to unpack for the night and pack up again the next morning. Luckily after 10
days of being house bound we managed to pass through the rivers and get safely
back to Lahad Datu.
One night in Lahad Datu is all we had before catching the
night bus to KK the following evening, for our flight to Australia and our
final visa run of the year. How time has flown.
Below is a picture of the washing line at the forest house, something strange had found its way onto the line that day... Piggy's bath time, brown pig is now pink again :)
Below is a picture of the washing line at the forest house, something strange had found its way onto the line that day... Piggy's bath time, brown pig is now pink again :)
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