Welcome to Paradise
With the open water ticket sorted we were off to the Kuala Lumpur (via Dubai and a brief touch down in Dhaka). The original plan to see the last stage of the Tour of Lankawi was dropped when we realised we would still be on the plane!
It was good to spend a couple of days acclimatising to the heat in the luxury of Sri Langit apartments with my cousin and his family. With it not being very practical to run in the streets around the complex, I had a wee treadmill session and was soon dripping with sweat ( I failed to notice the air conditioning which had been turned off) – never mind sweating is good for … apparently.
The first of a good many early rises saw KL left behind and a flight over to Kota Kinablu before another flight across to Tawau and the road connection to Semporna. There we were met by a boat to take us out to Mabul and the dive resort. When we finally arrived – we knew what Chooi meant by “see you in paradise”! The place was amazing. Imagine a perfect dessert island and you have Mabul. Lunch & dive paperwork over and we got fitted out with sea fins and 2mm wetsuits – some contrast to the thermals, undersuit and dry suit combination.
A dive summary:
Day 1
Dive 1 – aborted after 4 mins! Visibility was even worse than Loch Long
Dive 2 – Sipidan Hanging Garden 28min / 9.4m
Dive 3 – Sipidan South Point 35min / 15.5m
Dive 4 – Mabul Oil Rig 35min / 16.1m
Day 2
Dive 1 – Sipidan Barracuda Point 40min / 27.7m
Dive 2 – Sipidan Hanging Garden 46min / 13.1m
Dive 3 – Mabul Eel Garden 50min / 16.7m
Dive 4 – Mabul Paradise (Night dive) 50min 13.1m
Day 3
Dive 1 – Sipidan Barracuda Point 39min / 24.3m
Dive 2 – Sipidan Drop Off 36min / 21m
Dive 3 – Kapalai Mandarin Garden 49min / 15.8m
Day 4
Dive 1 – Sipidan Drop Off 46min / 24.3m
Dive 2 – Sipidan Barracuda Point 38min / 28.6m
Dive 3 – Sipidan South Point 51min / 8.5m
Highlights included:
Dawn dive at the drop off on Sipidan Island. The wall looked different … mainly because there were 100s of bumpheads who didn’t seem to like being woken up by divers.
The night dive – stating the obvious a total contrast to a day dive. For one, you tend to see more mainly because of the limited field of vision which forces you into focusing more !
Swimming in a shoal of 5000 – 6000 barracuda. Very humbling indeed.
Swimming close to the reef and leopard sharks. Dismissing the myth about all sharks being killers!
Chooi (top dive guide / Mr fixit), the dive master, boat crew and staff at the SMART dive resort.
Next morning we were up at 5:30am to head back over to Kota Kinablu where we were meeting up with Alan. As usual, the flights were perfect and we got a great view of the mountain during the descent. Alan did his usual collie dug impersonation as we steadily climbed up to the park gate. Booked into the Hill Lodges and a wee jungle exploration was in order. We walked the 4km up the road to get a look at the start of the mountain before dropping down to a river trail which leads back to the park HQ. An impressive display of acrobatics from a monkey looked as if it had been laid on especially for us. The lower sections of the trail brought back memories of SAS Jungle but without Eddie’s encouragement this time. Once back at the main road we got some glimpse of the mountain itself … it looked big. A good deal of time that night was spent on the eradication of mosquitoes. The big yin took the under the net approach and just hid whilst I swatted as many as I could find with a book (ironically a copy of Mike Stroud’s “Survival of the Fittest”.
Next morning we were back down at the HQ to pick up our mountain guide Dappit (who was instantly renamed “deep heat”). The trail starts up a seemingly endless number of steps. Every so often there is a shelter which also has a source of water (untreated) and a toilet (kind of). The climb up is sticky but ok – very similar to the last pull up to Namche Bazzar out in Nepal. We got to the mountain hut in a fairly respectable 3 hours – which left the afternoon to relax and eat. Big disappointment was finding out that the hut had NO chocolate … infact no munchies at all. With a 2am rise on the cards dinner was wolfed quickly and an attempt on sleep made. In the end the attempt was very successful! The alarm sounded and it was back for more food – more importantly coffee.
Heading out into the darkness was murder – tired, cold limbs were not amused. Soon, we were climbing up onto the first fixed rope section where a poor Dutch lass was struggling with the whole deal – not many hills in Holland. All she needed was a little encouragement and she got over the worst of it. My Dad and the Big Yin questioned my motives for helping her as usual.
Once on the plateau it all changed. For one it was cold …very cold. The upside was the angle eased. Last hard push up onto the summit saw us on the summit for just after 6am – in plenty time for the sunrise. I found myself a comfy rock away from the growing crowd on beside the cairn. Post sunrise we quickly got some “see you Jimmy” hat photaes before heading back down to the hut for a second breakfast. Fed and on the final descent, an idea came into play … “why don’t we run back doon”. It was steep and sore but great fun.
In all, we had taken 9 hours (over the two days) to climb approximately 18km and 2195m (7200ft) of ascent. For really impressive statistics have a read at the tables below. They are from the 2004 Kinablu hill race – which has an extra 4km road section added on to the end !
Male Senior
No Bib Name Country Summit Time Finish Time
1 007 Bruno Brunod ITA 1:43.51 2:40.04
2 001 Ricardo Meija Hernandez MEX 1:38.36 2:42.22
3 023 Robert Krupiche CZE 1:39.08 2:42.57
Female Senior
No Bib Name Country Summit Time Finish Time
1 200 Anna Pichtrova CZE 1:54.43 3:06.54
2 207 Favre Corinne FRA 2:09.24 3:28.10
3 212 Zatorska Yzabela POL 2:06.35 3:29.25
Veteran
No Bib Name Country Summit Time Finish Time
1 367 Rodimin Bin MAS 1:58.51 3:07.22
2 301 Taising Bukolong MAS 2:04.35 3:10.52
3 300 Ahhing bin Serinen MAS 2:13.01 3:18.22
