31 January 2014
After a friend travelled to Borneo a few months ago, she told us about these ‘jungle river tours’ that are available in Sabah.
The tours travel along the Kinabatangan River where the rainforest creatures still live in the wild. I must admit that this was the main thing that drew me to Sabah itself, as my passion for wildlife exceeds much else in my life. My hope was to find orangutans, proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants, rhinoceros hornbills and a clouded leopard – and I’d say that having seen 4 of these 5 wasn’t a bad track record for only five nights in the jungle.
Kinabatangan means ‘china, long river or tree’ and again, it is uncertain where this name originated, but it sure is a very long and rather wide river. It twists and turns back on itself in several places, creating ox-bow lakes; and the river boasts an impressive total length of about 560 kilometres. The area is teeming with wildlife but there are also many parts in Upper-Kinabatangan that have been badly affected by encroaching palm oil plantations. There are conservation efforts to protect the remaining wildlife but clashes between man and nature are often unavoidable.
Lodges are based mainly in the Sukau town area, but Bilit village also has a few which are on the quieter end of things. We ended up enjoying the first tour so much, that we came back to Bilit Adventure Lodge for a second time, after a week in Semporna. During our tours (in mid-February 2014, still technically ‘monsoon season’ for this area) we managed to get thoroughly soaked at least twice on each tour but the rewards were so much greater than a few hours of driving rain. Read a few Kinabatangan River TripAdvisor reviews for more information.
Our wildlife sightings over the five days were: mouse deer (at our lodge!), proboscis monkey, silver leaf monkey, orangutan, long-tailed macaque, short-tailed macaque, crocodile, monitor lizzards, kettle fish, pygmy elephants, python, yellow ring snake, black squirrel, mudfish (no gills!), red velvet dragonflies, one dead black cobra (huge!) and leeches.
With a vast array of beautiful birds in this area, some of our special bird sightings (those we actually knew the names of anyway) were: stork-billed kingfisher, rhinoceros hornbill (so impressive!), oriental pied hornbill, wrinkled hornbill, black hornbill, bushy-crested hornbill, blue-eared kingfisher, red coucal, lily hens, black and red broadbill (stunning!), blue-throated bee eaters, lesser fish eagle, serpent eagle, ashy tailorbird, egrets, herons and so many other feathered friends!
Sadly, we didn’t see: Sumatran Rhinoceros (not seen by our guide in 16 years on the job), clouded leopard, slow loris, tarsiers, sunbear, mongoose and read leaf monkeys.
Overall, it was a fantastic trip and we really appreciated that this could be a once in a lifetime experience. We hope that one day our children may also be given the chance to see these amazing creatures in their natural habitat, provided environmental conservation efforts can keep them protected that long in to the future. It would be such a shame to lose yet another part of God’s wonderful creation to man’s destruction.
Read more about our adventures in the jungle here.
