Into the jungle we go...

After eating a nice breakfast (with no vanilla butter in sight) we visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. It is here that Orangutans are rehabilitated after either becoming orphaned as infants or after being rescued from being kept as pets (which is illegal). This rehabilitation process can take up to ten years and some orangutans never fully gain independence from the centre, continuing to visit feeding platforms on the edge of the centre for the rest of their lives.

First stop...an educational film about the centre and orangutans. Jo and I love a wildlife documentary so this was thoroughly enjoyable for both of us :-) Then onto the boardwalk to the first feeding platform in the centre which is the only one that tourists are allowed to observe. We were there for the 10:30am feeding. As soon as the staff from the centre had hauled the bananas and milk onto the platform, the orangutans were on their way, swinging on the ropes towards their mid morning snack! They were fascinating to watch...so human in so many ways which isn't all that surprising as they share 96.4% of our DNA!! Lastly, a visit to the information centre in which Jo somehow managed to get herself locked in for five minutes! Then back to Uncle Tan's B&B for some lunch!

Once we'd fed ourselves on the tasty buffet we packed our overnight bags in preparation for two nights in the jungle! We had a two hour drive to the port followed by an hour long boat ride to get to the camp. On this boat journey we saw rhinocerous hornbills, asian-black hornbills, pig-tailed macaques and long-tailed macaques!

On arriving at camp we were both pleasantly surprised to find that it is not quite so basic as we expected. Ok, so there's no running water and only a couple of hours of electric at night courtesty of a generator. But there are wooden walkways, huts on stilts, mattresses for us to sleep on, mosquito nets and milo!! What more could we need?!

After dinner this evening we went on a night boat safari! It was pitch black and the sky was incredible...the number of stars we could see was breathtaking!! I spent a fair amount of time just looking up at the sky while our boat travelled up-river! On this night safari we saw a blue-eared kingfisher, a night heron, long tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys and an owl!

Very much looking forward to two boat trips and two hikes tomorrow!!

Tam xx