Mount Kinabalu - the park and its trails

Having scaled Mount Kinabalu, my wife Cate and I were feeling more than a little jaded. Although the summit trek is relatively short in terms of distance it is extremely gruelling ! With calf muscles acheing we took on some of the less taxing trails around the park. Besides, I still hadn't found a mature Cyathea capitata !

The trails around the park are a series of tracks that wind around and through the rainforest. Some of these trails are little more than 500mtr jaunts with others being 5km or more. Each trail had its own distinct microclimate. Some were quite high and exposed whilst others were through dense, dark forest and in this article I shall describe some of these journies.

Around the park headquarters...

There is something very special about the park HQ. This is a world heritage site renowned throughout the world for its unique flora and fauna and yet it has a certain serenity and humbleness about itself. Everything from the old wooden handpainted sign at the entrance to the main offices below. It's all very relaxed and charming.

You don't have to walk very far past the main entrance before you get a great view of the mountain. The HQ is based at quite a high vantage point with the main trails and accomodation being dotted around in an oval shape which rolls down hill between the HQ and mountain. The views are magnificent and sent a tingle through my spine when the clouds cleared and I caught my first view of Kinabalu.

The other striking feature is the sheer number of tree ferns that litter the entire area. They dominate the landscape. For the most part these are Cyathea contaminans. This tree fern is very common throughout Malaysia and Borneo and grow a trunk of 15-20 mtr. None of the specimens we saw were anything near this height but still there were many of 8-10 mtr or more. It has a very distinctive spiny apex and stipe bases which are black. Another interesting point is that many of them seemed to be growing in full sun.

Once we had checked in at the park HQ we made our way down the windy narrow road to our lodge for the night. Again we were taken by the relaxed atmosphere of the park. There is only 1 restaurant which serves the most excellent food in a very pleasant and professional yet also informal setting. It was strange that as we sat down for dinner that night we were the only people in there. Where was everyone else ? Where were the hoards of Japanese tourists ? There were'nt any.

There couldn't have been more than 100 people on the entire park and mountain. I was really beginning to like this place !