Day 378: Top spot!

After a leisurely breakfast of eggs and toast we packed up and hung around the chalet waiting for our friendly taxi driver to arrive, which he duly did at about 11.15 cab. We then drove back down to Kuching and checked into the Nova Hotel again. 

The part of Kuching in which the hotel is located is a bit bereft of nice places to eat (Taipan Food Corner is great, but there's only so many times you can eat noodles and wontons), so we checked out Trip Advisor to see what other options were available. We settled on a place called Top Spot Food Court, which seemed reasonably close by, and headed off. Although it looked pretty straightforward to get there, when we arrived at what we thought was the right place all we could find was a multi-storey car park. After a bit of sleuthing, we found a few signs and a rather skanky elevator, which we took to the top floor. Turning a corner, we came across a sea of tables and rows of food stalls, but no diners – thanks to our leisurely attitude to meal times we had managed to miss lunch. Our regular McDonald's was just across the road, so we slouched in there and filled up on production-line burgers and fries instead.

We spent the afternoon in the hotel room, enjoying the air conditioning and cable TV, before heading back out Top Spot again for dinner. This time, when we turned the corner, we found a sea of diners filling the tables and washing up against the food stalls. We did a quick circuit, peering at the brightly lit displays of seafood and vegetables at each of the stalls. We eventually chose one and received a quick tutorial on how it all worked. The idea was that you grabbed a tray, piled it up with the things you wanted to eat and then told them how you wanted it all cooked. They then weighed the various ingredients to work out the price and then handed it over to the kitchen. 

We opted for a nice big fish, a pile of prawns and a bigger pile of vegetables. After handing it all over we grabbed a nearby table and ordered some beers and soft drinks. While we waited for the food to arrive, I wandered over to a different stall and grabbed some satay sticks.

It didn't take long for our ingredients to return in cooked form, but unfortunately Kate hadn't specified how she wanted the vegetables prepared, and when they arrived, they were drowning in a frankly inedible sauce. She took them back to the stall and they very kindly agreed to replace them with something a bit more to our taste. The seafood dishes were delicious – as were the replacement veges – and we had a very pleasant meal, chatting while we ate to a lovely Dutch couple with whom we were sharing the table.

Day 377: Several steps too far

After rising late again and having some toast and eggs again, we headed out into the forest again. This time we set off up the hill on the reservoir track, which proved to consist of a lot of stone steps going up the side of the mountain. A lot of stone steps. Going up. And up. And up. When we reached a side track heading off to some lookouts, the girls refused to continue climbing. I decided that having climbed so many sodding steps, I couldn’t stop without seeing the actual reservoir, and continued up on my own. I soon met a guy coming down who assured me that it wasn’t much further so I called out to the others, but the girls still refused to go any higher. Kate was also keen to see the reservoir, however, so she continued up with me. The guy was right and we didn’t have much further to climb, but when we got there, we discovered that the climb definitely wasn’t worth the effort: the reservoir was just that – a small man-made pond with a fence around it. Kate quickly turned around and rejoined the girls, but I stayed and did a circuit in the hope that I would come across a snake or lizard or two out sunning themselves in the man-made clearing around the reservoir. I didn’t.

When I got back down to the others, we set off for the lookouts, which, as per our other lookout experiences in Southeast Asia, were pretty uninspiring, the haze from the Indonesian fires obscuring anything that might have been worth looking out at.

When we had set off this morning, Kate had said, ‘I want to see a snake today,’ and as we approached the last of the lookouts, she fulfilled her own request, spotting a juvenile viper on a pile of bark beneath a large tree.

It was around lunch time by now, so stopped on a big log for some tuna and cucumber sandwiches – but we didn’t linger as there were clouds of mosquitoes around intent on lunching on us.

As per usual, it was a hot and steamy day, so on the way back down we stopped for a quick immersion in a shallow pool in a small creek, struggling a little to find a pool big enough to get wet enough in. The track we were following was uncharacteristically well marked, with big slashed of red and white paint on the adjacent trees; however, Zoe and still managed to wander off it at one point when Sarah and Kate had gone off ahead of us. Thankfully, we realised our mistake relatively quickly and rejoined the others not long after.

When we got back to the chalet, we did a bit of clothes washing and hung it out just as the sun disappeared. There was another storm in the area, but this time there was a lot of thunder but no rain.

After dinner – pasta again - I went out on another night walk, but despite covering a lot of ground, I didn’t see much: just a couple of sleeping Gonocephalus and a few big phasmids.

Day 376: Finding the fantastic fleshy flower

We were up late this morning. I cooked some eggs in the giant wok and toasted some bread over the open flame on the stove and then we set off up the main waterfall track. It was hard going – the track was steep and the day was warm – but we saw a few Gonocephalus and a few geckoes along the way. All the while we were on the lookout for the Rafflesia flower that we had heard about yesterday. 

As we approached our final destination – Waterfall 7 – I spotted a gecko on a large rock beside the path and called the others over to have a look. As the girls and I watched the little lizard, Kate suddenly called out, 'There it is.' And sure enough, on the other side of the path atop a large rock was the Rafflesia flower. Deep orange-red, fleshy, about 30 centimetres across, it hadn't quite unfurled completely yet but was still very impressive. Not far away we also spotted a Rafflesia bud on a liana.

When we reached the waterfall, we all stripped off and went for a swim (and Zoe was visited by a large butterfly), before making some sandwiches for lunch. After we had finished eating, we were joined by six local women who had come up from the town to see the Rafflesia flower.

We packed up and made the long walk back down to the chalet, arriving just before a storm broke, complete with lightning, thunder and sheeting rain. We spent the afternoon hanging around the chalet and in the evening, I cooked some more pasta for dinner.

After dinner I went back out for another night walk, taking the waterfall track again. I went a lot higher up this time and about halfway up the hill I spotted some movement near a small ephemeral (now dry) creek that resolved into a frog – and then another. As they were both relatively nondescript brown ground frogs I wasn't too fussed about photographing them, so I made a slightly half-hearted and wholly ham-fisted attempt to catch both and ended up catching neither.

I kept going up the hill and found a couple of sleeping Gonocephalus and a very large and well-armoured phasmid, and then turned around and headed back down again. When I got to the ephemeral creek, I stopped and shone my torch around for a while, trying to spot some more frogs. High up the slope, I saw what looked to be a small green frog on a large green leaf, so I clambered up for a closer look. It turned out to be a young spotted rock frog – dark spots on its back but a brilliant lime green elsewhere. I took off my daypack and cap and set about trying to find a suitable spot from which to photograph it on the steep slope. Perched precariously, I contorted myself to get the right angles on the little amphibian, all the while digging my feet into the slope to try to stop myself sliding off. 

Looking around, I found a few more frogs and spent some time moving from frog to frog, looking for the perfect shot. When I was done, I picked up my cap and popped it on my head without bothering to check it – and instantly regretted doing so. It was covered in small brown ants and consequently so, now, was my head. Much cursing and slapping ensued as I attempted to rid myself of the biting blighters.

Day 375: Land of the giant flower

It was McDonald's for breakfast again this morning, after which we went back out to the supermarket near the hotel to pick up supplies for our next destination – Gunung Gading National Park – where again there is nowhere to buy food but there is a kitchen in our 'chalet'. Then, after dropping the shopping and the girls off at the hotel, Kate and I went back out and then split up – she went to get some bread and cash, and I went for a haircut. My stylist was a very sweet young local guy who waved away my instructions and proceeded to shape my hair into a close of his own style – very short at the sides and rather 'sculpted' on top.

After meeting up again back at the hotel, we all went back out and picked up some barbecued pork from a little Chinese restaurant then some slushies from the 7-Eleven across the road. We then went back to the hotel, where our driver (and he is now 'our driver', this being our third journey with him) was waiting. We chucked our bags in the taxi and then set off for the more than an hour long journey to the park. When we got there, we checked in and got the exciting news that there was a Rafflesia in flower next to the path that ran up the mountain behind the park headquarters. A parasite that grows on lianas, there are more than 20 species of Rafflesia and they all produce very large, foul-smelling flowers – in some cases, the world's largest. There's no set season for flowering, so although we knew that Gunung Gading was a very good place to see them, we had no idea whether any would be in flower during our visit.

We dropped our stuff in our 'chalet' – a three-bedroom wooden building with a kitchen, two bathrooms (with cold showers), and a big communal living area with sofas, an eight-seater dining table and very high ceilings. I gave the kitchen a once-over and discovered that it didn't have a toaster, a fridge or any saucepans or frying pans, just a simple gas stove, a rice cooker and an extremely large wok. We put the girls in the only room with air conditioning and Kate and I took a room each. 

We then headed out for a quick walk - up the (pretty steep) main trail to the first of the three waterfalls that it connects. As has been true in the other parks we've visited, the term 'waterfall' is used pretty loosely – it's really just a spot where a creek flows down over a larger than usual rock. There was a small pool at its base, but we didn't really feel like swimming – although Kate and the girls still managed to find a way to get their lower reaches wet, slipping and sliding and falling into one pool or another while I was away photographing frogs.

On the way back down, we took a slide trail that led to a boardwalk through a 'Rafflesia research area'. Near the junction, Sarah spotted a dead Rafflesia flower by the path – a strange black-brown shrivelled up thing. Where the boardwalk exited the forest, a swimming area had been constructed – much like the one at Kubah National Park, created by damming a stream that exited the forest at the same place – and the girls and I stripped off and went for a quick swim in it. There was also a very basic fountain nearby, with a single jet shooting up from the centre of a small circular pond.

After dinner (pasta cooked in the rice cooker; sauce cooked in the enormous wok), I walked back up the main trail but didn't see much – just a gecko or two. I came back down the Rafflesia boardwalk, but saw even less there. I was about to head back to the chalet when I heard a desultory croak from the fountain near the swimming area. I went over to investigate and managed to find four different species of frog in the little pond, including a gorgeous orange and black example.