MaMa's Blogging Zone: Mount Kinabalu

Journey to Mt. Kinabalu starts from here.

I took an early flight departed from Kuala Lumpur at 8:30am, arrived Kota Kinabalu at 11:20am.

I met up with my buddy from Singapore in the K.K. Airport as her flight arrived at the same time.

We had our lunch in the Airport. There weren't much choices, in fact, we didn't see anywhere else other than KFC. Maybe, we did not try to explore the airport. :P

After our KFC lunch, We took the airport cab at about 1pm heading straight to Mesilau Nature Resort which is 2-1/2 hours away from the K.K. Airport. It may sounds a long journey, but it was quite a brief one to both us especially when we started chatting away about everything about our children, our backpacks, our men etc. "Not very long after", we arrived the resort.

It was drizzling when we arrived Mesilau. I checked the weather forecast before the trip, and the outlook didn't look good, it was a sign of rain throughout the week. However, it didn't worry me too much since everything has been scheduled and paid.

We checked in the resort at about 4pm, and continued our conversation in our room until the time for dinner which was 7pm. Our target for the night was to sleep at 9pm since we are expecting a full blast hiking up to the base camp. True enough, our chittery chattery stopped at 9pm sharp!

We woke up at 6:30am the next morning, and we took about 1/2 hour to freshen ourself up. Packed up our backpack, and off to the restaurant to have our simple breakfast which included : Orange Juice, Tea/Coffee, Toasts, Eggs, Sausages, Bean in Tomato Sauce and Fruits.

We hit to the starting point of Mesilau Trail just right before 9pm. We had one guide and one young lady as our porter to join us in our hike to Low's Peak. In less than half and hour, the rain started to pour dogs & cats. We stopped at the 1st KM hut, and we waited for a while. But we thought it was not a very good idea to wait till the rain stops, as we have a LONG WAY ahead of us. Thus, without much hesitation, we proceeded our hike in the rain.

All paths are filled with rain water, wet & muddy. Even though the weather didn't favour us, I must said I had a good time throughout the hike. It was a total different experience from my first climb to Mt. Kinabalu. To me, hiking in the rain is such a sensational & memorable, I was wearing my SMILE all the way up to the Base Camp, Laban Rata. The rain was really heavy and I didn't manage to take a photo of the rush of the water flow in the stream.

The trail via Mesilau is not as monotonous as compared to Timpohon. Imagine, 4km of steps and steps, and then still step up after steps all the way up to the intersection of Mesilau & Timpohon Trail. In Mesilau, we see flights of wooden steps, rocky paths, red muddy paths, a easier trail and if the weather is fair, you will probably get some good views at the Lookout Point, which I did in my last climb here 5 years ago.

At 1:50pm, the fascinating sight of the Laban Rata House made me felt a sense of relief which is indescribable - "phew, 1st part of the hike ends right here!". At the same time, the satisfaction of being up here 1-1/2 hours earlier than the last hike make me put up a VICTORY smile on my face. Yuppie!

The first thing I did when I arrived at Laban Rata was to get a mug of HOT Milo. I have not drunk Milo any tastier than this mug that I had in Laban Rata. It instantly warmed me up who was totally soaked in the rain during the hike.

This photo didn't show much, but this pair of shoes weathered the rough hike up here with me. Horray to my pair of lovely "gym shoes". They are now still in good condition after a wash!!! I was expecting to dispose it upon the journey ends, but it was still in superb condition. :P

Just for my own record and some friends' queries, these are the price list that you are going to expect in Laban Rata. Yes, my mug of yummy Milo cost me RM13.00 which I can get myself a small tin of it in town. What do you expect? When you in their RestHouse, one and only one, you are already been placed on the chopping board. Unless, BYO!

Again, there are limited resources up in Laban Rata, so you will expecting the weak generator stops in a sudden and came back running the current in another second. Needless to say, everyone's desires of HOT WATER SHOWER will be rather hard to come by. Well, IF you are lucky enough, LIKE ME, you will get occasion hot water during the shower. Unlucky for my dear buddy, she had icing cold water throughout her shower. LOL :P

We were awake at 2:30am, had a really simple SUPPER before we head off to Low's Peak. Elaine and I were amongst the last to leave Laban Rata. We left at around 3:30am and we overtook some hikers and we arrived at 5:30pm below Low's Peak to take some photos. We were approximately 100-150M away from the Low's Peak. It was super windy and I was extremely cold. The strong chilling wind put off my desire of using my D600 & Benro boy. Elaine is a Pro in Photography, and I think her photography desires fight the chilling winds and she was steadily setting up her tripod and camera for shoots, while I was shivering in the cold chilling wind, getting frustrated over the shutter which did not seem to work under my THICK WOOLEN GLOVES. I attempted to took the gloves off, in less than 2 seconds, I quickly put it on again. It was TOO cold for me to proceed. I decided to keep my D600 and the Benro back to my backpack, and took out my daily photo gadget, IPHONE, snapping away here and there, which was MUCH easier to manipulate.