Our 1.7 km one wet nite in September.
It's been a rather wet week in Miri, it was anticipated to be the same this nite. It was already drizzling lightly as I was driving to our agreed meeting place. The participants arrived at the lobby one by one, the drizzle kept drizzling. Sim arrived first after me, we immediately set off after Sara drove into the parking lot.
We went straight to Kpg Bakam where we met our guide, one of the kampong's old timer very familiar with the area. We set off to the head of the trail, our guide carried with him a shotgun apparently as a safety precaution. Rumour has it that several sightings of leopard have been reported in the area. There's also the potential of wildboars.
The rain didn't any signs of stopping as we walked into the trail. Some put out their umbrellas, some donned their plastic raincoat while others simply enjoyed the cool drops as they walked along.
The nite was dark with no signs of stars in the sky only sparkling droplets of falling rain, by then the drizzle has progressed to light rain. The surrounding grasses and vegetaion were, the path only barely lit by torchlight revealing the meandering path white fine sands.
We crossed our first obstacle in the form of a bamboo bridge. It was a small adreline rush for some considring the 10 feet drop off with only a shaky bamboo structure between us and the wet below. Everybody crossed safely. The path further on was quite, it seemed devoid of life other than bats, small frogs and some insetcs. The rain didn't help matters, earlier we decided to cut short the trek.
We crossed a couple more bridges soon after. The last bridge was probably the most exciting : it wasnt actually a bridge but just a fallen big tree which has been fashioned into a bridge with nails and handrails. It's was inlined 30 degrees into the river we were crossing. It was too much for some of us, Steve chose to wet his feet by walking across the river.
Throughout the whole trek we discovered only two roving fireflies which were too high up to net as samples; bats; a large forest cockroach; a pair of stick insects and some nasty ants. Everyone agreed that we should attempt this trail again in better weather for the fireflies and perhaps once during the day to assess birdlife in the area.
We ended our nite time trek around 9:30pm after having traversed 1.7 kms of the landscape in the rain.
Those who made the cut.
Forging a stream in the nite.
Tip-toeing on a rickety bamboo bridge with a 10ft dro-off.
Article by Musa Musbah/MNS Miri/Sep 2010
Photos by Jia Jun Law/MNS Miri/Sep 2010
