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Nice haircut

Thursday 8th April - Back Home

Finally arrived back home and enjoyed French bread, pâté & a small-ish glass of Chablis (didn’t have any of these in Borneo) in the sunshine in the back garden. Not quite 35C though & no hornbills flying past.

Tuesday 6th April – last day in Borneo :-(

Got a short flight back to Kota Kinabalu (KK to us locals) where we started from. Was upgraded to a room with a sea view from where we could see the sunset over the South China sea. Tomorrow its 15 hours of flying to get back to the UK.

Monday 5th April – Easter Monday

This morning we checked last night’s tally for turtles nesting on the island – 16 nests & 1122 eggs laid; not bad but the record is 88 nests in one night

Our boat was waiting to take us back to mainland Borneo under threatening clouds

Saw some turtles “frolicking” in the sea on the way back

We had to stop on the first island to pick up a baby proboscis monkey that was rescued from the water 3 days earlier and given to us to look after. It was on its way to be looked after properly on the mainland.

This is what the monkey looked like when it was handed over 3 days ago – wet, tired & unhappy

Anyway, we went to Sepilok to hand over the monkey & see the orang-utans

We watched them for an hour when it was feeding time

This one was being buzzed by bees so stuck bananas on his head

We did another canopy walkway before heading back to the hotel in Sandakan

The Sabah hotel in Sandakan – easily the nicest hotel we’ve stayed at in Borneo (and with internet – at last!!) Tomorrow morning we have a short flight back to Kota Kinabalu where we started from.

Sunday 4th April – Easter Sunday

Took an early morning stroll to see some island flying foxes hanging upside-down in some coconut palms on the island

… then after lunch we went to out next destination, Kelingan Island aka Turtle Island

The “tomato” (Alison’s case) was brought safely ashore

A monitor lizard passed by, enemy of the turtle

Saw the turtle hatchery, about 100 eggs buried under each of the green net rings

After dinner and in darkness with no camera flash allowed we went to see a green turtle laying its eggs on the beach

… and saw the turtle covering the eggs before creeping back into the sea

Finally saw some hatchlings being released to the sea under torchlight. Tomorrow we go back to mainland Borneo to see loads of orang-utans at the Sepilok rehabilitation centre

Saturday 3rd April

An easy day today still “marooned” on Libaran island

Zipped across to Bakkungan Kechil island for a couple of hours. This is one of the Turtle Island group & has a turtle hatchery but no accommodation.

This island is on the border with the Philippines, the island in the background is part of the Philippines

Saw some underwater stuff – a blue starfish - from a glass-bottomed boat (not a very good picture I know)

… and did some relaxing in the sea

Came back to see some rescued baby turtles later released into the sea. We see more of this tomorrow when we spend a night on Kelingan island aka Turtle island

Friday 2nd April – Good Friday

After a boat trip through the mangrove swamp …

… and across the Sulu sea past “whale island” …

… we made it to Libaran Island off Borneo

We’ll cope for 2 nights!

Went back to the mangrove swamp to see the fishermen …

… their houses …

… and wildlife such as this swimming proboscis monkey (big nose)

The night ended with a nice meal on the beach …

… and some dancing put on by the locals

Thursday 1st April

Early morning start for another river cruise and a trek through the rainforest complete with leech socks (required)

A leech on someone’s arm – nice!

On the way back we found one of Alison’s favourites – a hornbill

… and some more later on

On another boat trip later on we saw some bats …

… and a yellow-ringed snake amongst some other stuff. Tomorrow we move on to Libaran Island in the Sulu Sea.

Wednesday 31st March

Started our journey to Sukau for 2 days to find we had a stowaway on the bus

Close up of the stowaway

Went to see the World’s biggest flower – the Rafflesia (this one’s not the biggest example)

Needed to go via water taxi to our next accommodation – those are our cases heading towards the boat…

… and these are our rooms for the next 2 nights – perched on the river’s edge

Went on a river cruise to see who was about

Monitor lizard

Long-tailed macaque

Crocodile (swimming away, obviously scared of us)

Orang-utan (hard to get a good photo, they live quite high up in the trees)

Proboscis monkey (with the big nose)

After the boat ride and dinner we settled down under the mossie nets