Trek – Bario to Long Main - Day 6

We all overslept this morning, and after saying a surreal goodbye to our 'Mum' Holly, we still managed to leave camp at 7am. We kept up a very good pace, even though all we'd had for breakfast was a shared mug of coffee and a couple of lolly-pops. Good chat and many games of 20 questions kept our mind from lingering on our bellies, aching muscles and blistering feet. Four hours later we stepped out of the jungle and were greeted with the surreal sight of Long Lellang – we were all in a state of disbelief and euphoria at finally arriving at our destination, which many of us were starting to believe was a fictional place made up by the locals. We were right to be slightly suspicious of us actually being there, because after waving goodbye to Holly on her plane and after a meal with Seluma's family we were told we had one last to trek to Long Main.. However, for what I think was the first time ever, the hours trek we were told it would be was ACTUALLY an hour! When we reached Long Main we all jumped into the beautiful river for a much needed wash, followed by celebrations with the villagers, which involved downing large amounts of coffee, the famous CA whisky and a game that involved bashing people over a head with a bottle.

Trek – Bario to Long Main - Day 5

Day 5 showed us yet again another example of dodgy timing, although, by this point I think most of us didn’t expect any less. The boat was several hours late, however as this was our last day of trek this didn't phase us. Eventually two longboats arrived which we hopped gladly into. The boys were put into what they thought was the more dodgy boat, whilst the girls laughed at Ben looking unimpressed at having to constantly bail water out, Andy looking equally unimpressed as most of this water was splashing onto him, and Mike just lounging against the bags looking like a rich English gentleman enjoying a leisurely boat ride upstream. It was indeed a beautiful boat ride, in glorious sun, with I think all of us having several 'I love the Jungle' spasms. However, as usual for trek, our good luck was not to continue... The girls boats engine failed, and we had to sit for about two hours trying to shelter from several torrential downpours while they unsuccessfully tried to fix it. We then resorted to paddling, punting and in the case of the rapids getting out and pushing it upstream. By the time we reached the docking point it became obvious that finishing trek that night was not a viable option. As we hadn't planned for an extra night, and had eaten all our food, all we managed to scrounge together was three packets of noodles and Andy's emergency rations of a small tin of revolting dried fish... Needless to say we were all cursing our bad luck at this point. It was at this point we were finally blessed with some good fortune in the form of 'Miracle Man'. He turned up with the answers to all of our problems. He just happened to be the owner of the shelters we were sat by, which he unlocked, provided us with biscuits, lolly-pops, some very expensive fish he'd caught AND a bottle of whisky! As if that wasn't enough, it then turned out he had truck only half an hour away in which he could take Holly and Ali back in so Holly would not miss her flight the next day! So, although we didn't finish trek that day, and Holly's leaving party was a lot more subdued that planned it was a million times better than it had looked when we'd had only three packets of noodles.

Trek – Bario to Long Main - Day 4

The start of day 4 was amazing, after popping a few painkillers to banish the muscle pains we gunned it along the logging roads in great spirits, actually over taking the guide 'Warrior Man' who was left in our wake bewildered by our speed! Our pace, and mood, rapidly declined however when we reached the muddy slippery jungle trails and the rain started up. Day 4 ended early as the boat we were waiting for to cross the river never turned up. (We later found out it had been washed away in all the rain) So we set up camp there to wait for the morning boat. That night whilst chilling out by the fire feeling very full, after having our first meat for several days (caught by the guides), and all of our remaining noodles Rebecca had a close encounter with a snake. Luckily warrior man had his wits about him, and while we were all frozen in panic he rushed in and chopped it in half with his perang! After several nights of sleeping on wooden floors it was a strange relief to be again trying to perfect the art of setting up our bashas, with all of us falling in love with our hammocks again.

Trek – Bario to Long Main - Day 3

Day 3 brought very mixed feeling within the group, with some of us having our worst day due to muscle aches to some of us having our best day of trek. Rhi finally got rid of the boots that had caused all her blistering, giving them to the headman of the Penan village we had stayed in that night. The morning passed quite well travelling along jungle trails including a break at a spectacular waterfall. It was the sort of waterfall that you see in 'classic' pictures of rainforests, and made all the effort of trek feel worth it to see something as beautiful as that right in front of us. Some of our spirits started to fall as we had another example of our guides dodgy timing on a seemingly endless, uphill, logging road. After day 2 when we'd been told that camp was 40 minutes away and still finding ourselves walking three hours later the group were starting to feel mutinous as the half hour they'd promised today came and went. It looked like night was going to fall before we reached camp again, luckily however we reached our shelter just before dark fell. Al had been starting to look rather nervous as he'd said that morning we could castrate him if we didn't stop before dark today! I think it's safe to say that we were all very happy to reach the shelter, even if it did have random rotting body parts of wild boars around it. After the rain made it apparent that we'd have to waterproof the roof of the shelter with our basha sheets we all collapsed in our now very cosy room with some candles and noodles supremely thankful that the day hadn't become a rerun of the day before!

Trek – Bario to Long Main - Day 2

This day later came to be known as Epic Day. The story about Day One being the hardest day of trek was soon to be completely rubbished. This day turned out to be the most knackering day of our lives, and one I'm sure none of us will ever forget. We left camp at 8.30am and did not reach camp until long after night had fallen at 9.45 pm. After about only half an hour after leaving camp Rebecca remembered that she'd forgotten her perang, and Pen (one of our guides) zoomed back to get it for her while we carried on.

This day was filled with steep uphill and downhill jungle trails, with each mountain getting bigger and our energy getting lower. At the top of one hill during a short breather we were told that we had one more downhill, a 'hill' to go up and over, one river crossing an we'd be there. So thinking this nobody bothered refilling their water, thinking to save weight on the last 'hill'. However, this hill turned out to be a never ending mountain. Ben had a high point whilst climbing this mountain and chattered away spouting out encouragement and random chat giving us something to listen to, which helped some of us no end to get up that mountain. Mike meanwhile was up at the front with 'Warrior Man' aka Robin, one of our guides, who seemed not to want Mike to overtake him. In a fit of competitiveness they ended up having a running race - up the mountain!

When we reached the summit of the mountain at 6.30pm we were told that camp was only 40 minutes trek and one river crossing away. Alas, this was not to be the case.. The summit of this mountain turned out to be far from the top of the mountain, one river crossing turned into eight (one of which was chest height and terrifying!), and 40 minutes turned into over three hours. After losing the light head torches came out, apart from Ben, who had swapped torches with Ali, couldn’t work it, so had to struggle through in the dark! We actually lost the trail at one point and our guide had to cut through very overgrown parts of the jungle with his perang. The new trail led us over what was basically a cliff face, and in torrential rain, it became mudslide haven, with us eventually giving up using out feet and simply going down on our bums. Or as in Holly's case clinging desperately to the guide Tim and claiming him as her own! Over thirteen hours later, and eleven hours of hard trekking we finally reached the village of Pa'Tik. We were relieved to say the least to arrive to a house and not have to put up bashas. We were all mentally and physically exhausted and the comfort that a warm Milo and some noodles gave us was inexpressible.

Trek – Bario to Long Main - Day 1

Our two days of 'rest' after Project Hornbill Camp included a BBQ feast and party (prepared by our Bario Mum Seluma), some of Florence's delicious cake, and last trips to Y2K to stock up on Treats-for-Trek. These varied from highly sugared jam, hundreds of sweets (Becca), chocolate and for Andy who liked them a little too much, nuts. After a day of packing and splitting up 5 days of rations between us, desperately trying to make our packs lighter in any way possible; we set off on trek. A breakfast of 'interesting', but tasty, spicy purple rice set everyone up in good stead for leaving the beautiful Bario in its glorious morning sun with feelings of mixed excitement, dread and nervous anticipation.

We were told that the first part of the first day of Trek would be the hardest, as we set out it looked as though this was holding true. It started off almost immediately with a tough two hours of uphill trekking, many tricky rivers, with an impressive disappearing act from Ali (after just an hour!) falling through and then down a fallen tree. This made us all start wondering what else was going to come up in the next four days, and if we were going to manage it.

That evening we arrived in very good time at our camp, at 3.15! This gave us plenty of time to put up our bashas and hammocks, and as in Rhi's case after a complaint from Andy fix the 'worst basha of all time'. We all then had time for a bathe in a beautiful jungle river before dark fell on the first night of trek. This was our first night of plain noodles, and although some of us thought we would never say it we were all starting to sorely miss veggie curry and the beautiful too full feeling it gave us. We were definitely glad to be in bed by 8.30 after what we thought had been a difficult day, how wrong we were...