Elephants on the Kinabatangan River!
12 August 2012
Jo
While we had Jamie, Mel and Izzy with us we had planned a trip up the Kinabatangan River, where we would get a glimpse of the Borneo wildlife, possibly orang utang, or pigmy elephants, crocs and hornbills. It would be a complete contrast to the lovely snorkelling and clear water of the islands on the way to Sandakan.
First however, a couple of nights in Sandakan were needed to re-provision, and for J.I.M. to go to the Sepilok Orang utan centre. We might strike lucky and see the Orang utan upriver, but if not they needed to make their acquaintance somewhere in Borneo, and this rehab centre is the next best thing to seeing them in the wild. These amazing animals live effectively in the jungle alone, but because they have been rescued, and re-released, some of them will appear to collect fruit at the twice daily feeding times, others are released and will integrate entirely, forgetting their human helpers completely.
We anchored off the Sandakan Yacht Club, and had been forewarned that night time theft might be a problem here, and to lock up dinghy and outboard, as well as hiding any valuables on board.
For the sake of coolness, we always sleep with all our hatches open, and decided we would do so again, but hide any goodies. Giles was able to try one of his electronic toys, a sensor alarm, which we duly set. In the event we had no problem!
Sandakan has a fascinating colonial feel to some parts, although most of it was bombed in WWII, but we climbed the 100 steps and visited the author Agnes Keith’s house, which was reconstructed in the 1946, and had tea in the English Tea House where we also played croquet on the immaculate lawn! The cool breeze and view from the hill there was lovely.
Next day we set off to the Kinabatangan River, planning to go in at the northern entrance, effectively a shortcut on the Mamyon River, part of the Kinabatangan delta. We timed our arrival well ahead of high water, as there is a long sandy bar, which continues for about 5 miles, but well supplied with way-points, we got into the river with no problem, and carried on on a rising tide, spotting some Irawaddy dolphins as we went.
The entrance actually seemed the easiest part, as river practice of keeping to the outside of the many bends proved very shallow in places, especially as we were at the top of the tide. On the whole the deep water followed the Nipah palm banks. We made an enormous loop around the village of Kampong Abai, and realised that the three or four mile loop ended where we had begun save for a narrow bank of only a few feet, a virtual oxbow lake. We joined the real Kinabatangan River at this point, and from here onwards, we began to see more jungle trees, and varied growth, and the river became a little easier to navigate.
A few miles to the north of Kampong Abai, and twenty miles from the mouth of the river, we felt we had done enough for one day, and anchored in an open spot where we thought we might have a chance of spotting crocodiles on the muddy bank! Actually what we saw were lots of proboscis monkeys. We were anchored right next to a tree where there was a big family squabble going on as two large males tried to get the best spot for the night. It was great fun watching and listening to the multi generation proboscis family, babies scurried up trees and were reprimanded by mum, teenagers played tag and then a bit of loving, all in all it was home from home for Izzy!
The proboscis monkeys are unique to Borneo, and are clown like in appearance. They are quite large, and have an enormous droopy red nose, and big fat tummy. They are a russet red colour, not at all well camouflaged as only the rare leopard is a predator.
As darkness came, and the monkeys still would not settle, we heard the hornbills roosting for the night, the cicadas ceased their din and were overtaken by noisy frogs, while a few fireflies came flitting around us, and many more mysterious jungle sounds assaulted us.
I had bought some fish in the market in Sandakan that morning, so it was the perfect place to barbecue tuna and prawns.
We were not being eaten by mosquitos, but we had taken the normal precautions of putting up our fly screens on all our hatches when we went to bed. It was a hot night, so Giles spent at least part of it in the cockpit, and reckoned he came below when it got cold at 0500 and I got up at 05.30 to watch and listen to the dawn.
Later on when everyone was up, Mel was looking for her camera, and Jamie noticed two of their wallets sitting in the cockpit. I had noticed these, but he had been chatting about decoy wallets, so assumed he had left them there. Finally it dawned on us that we had had a nocturnal visit of a cat burglar, who had come down below to the cabin, having unzipped the mosquito net across the companionway crept into our visitor’s aft cabin, and grabbed their wallets, camera and i-phone from the dressing table there. It seemed almost impossible, with five of us sleeping in different parts of the boat.
Our poor visitors first we run them onto a reef, then we sail 100 miles before a gale with a leaking boat, and now they have money and camera stolen!
They were stoically good humoured about it, and at least the thief had had the grace to only remove the cash from the wallet rather than take their cards as well, pity they didn’t leave the sim and memory cards from camera and phone too.
We continued upriver trying not to look suspiciously at every passing boat, there really aren’t very many, just the occasional tour boat. To add to the day’s inauspicious beginning, the engine refused to start, and the alternator was not charging. We started the engine off the ‘house’ battery bank, and the alternator decided to put in some charge.
However, spirits revived when three of us spotted a crocodile lying on the mud bank, and sliding quickly into the river, and now that the vegetation was much more varied, we began to see many different birds, including a splendid rhinoceros hornbill, with a bright red patch on its enormous beak, and splendid black and white plumage.
We crossed paths with friends Bruce and Kerry in ‘Haven’ coming down the river, who told us the pigmy elephants were much further north, but they had had a great boat trip with Sulieman, whose number they gave us.
Twenty miles on from Kampong Abai is the village of Sukau, where power lines across the river mean the end of the road for most yachts. We anchored opposite the mosque next to an overgrown muslim graveyard, and were almost immediately visited by Sulieman in his boat, hoping we would do a trip with him.
He was horrified to hear about our theft, and volunteered to take Jamie and Izzy off to the Police house. The policeman was out, but we arranged a trip for later on, which in the event was postponed until the next day, as the rain arrived and bucketed down for several hours!
Next morning we made an early start, and set off upriver in Sulieman’s fast boat, pausing frequently to be shown proboscis or macaque monkeys, and a whole host of different birds, at least four species of hornbill, grey stalk, eagles, brahminny kites, and brightly coloured kingfisher to name but a few. We also got quite close to a large monitor lizard about six foot long, which was a treat for J.I.M. the next best thing to a croc!
Back on Brother Wind for breakfast, and then we had to pursue transport to Sandakan next day for our guests. Although we had been told there were no taxis in Sukau it did not take long to find someone who was willing to take them in his car for a reasonable figure, which we organised for the morning.
Sukau is a very muslim village, and it was fascinating for Izzy to see little girls much younger than her coming out of school with long ankle length dress and veils on their heads. They were delightfully friendly, and must have thought Izzy’s red hair equally strange!
Next day we sadly waved them off, regretting that they had no time to do the return river trip. I suspect we had given them a holiday to remember in rather too many ways, but we at least were sad to see them go.
We headed off downriver, in no particular rush, and keeping an eye open for elephants along the way. I spotted a place we had noticed coming up where there looked like elephantine tracks to our inexperienced eyes, and as it was lunch time, we stopped and anchored.
No sign, and we were talking in the shade of the cabin, when I became aware of crashing and crunching noises, and when I bobbed up, there was an elephant’s bottom staring at us!! We cursed ourselves for not being more attentive, and settled down to wait and see if any more arrived. We had almost given up hope, when ¼ of a mile away further along the bank in a grassy and scrub tree area, we saw an elephant walking along, we waited, and soon more and more began to appear then disappear, and the next thing was that they emerged through the trees almost where we were anchored, and plunged into the water to cross the little creek there. As we watched more and more elephants repeated this journey. We cursed not having our dinghy in the water, so I could get some better photographs.
Meanwhile one small tour boat came and joined us, with four people on board, we watched for at least 1½ hours, and saw about 30 or more elephants. We just loved the noise and conversation that went on between the elephants, crashing and banging through the jungle, then trumpeting at each other, it was a unique experience. Eventually some other boats got wind of the elephants being there, and four more boats appeared, and jostled with each other unpleasantly close to where the elephants had been, but luckily all but one had gone by then!
We were however very distressed to find that one of the tour boats dropped some people on the bank, who went chasing into the jungle to try and see the one remaining elephant. He had already been making a din, but now became noisier still. It was very upsetting when we had felt so privileged to be observers. We pulled up our anchor and moved on.
Next day when we got to the river mouth too early for the tide, we anchored, and again heard the crashing and trumpeting of elephants, and heard them sploshing around amongst the mangroves, we didn’t see them on this occasion, but the noise alone was enough to reduce us to giggles, as we imagined with every glumphing splosh and happy trumpet the fun they were having!