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.