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Panorama of mount Kinabalu from Nabalu viewing tower
Panorama of mount Kinabalu from Nabalu viewing tower

Day 3 Diary by Rory Allen

After a night in the Great Western Day Hotel in Kota Kinabalu first on our itinerary was Malibu Market. We pulled in at the side of the road and were immediately overwhelmed by the overpowering smell of fish. This was primarly due to the dried anchovies which are caught on the East Coast and dried over a period of weeks before being driven to the West Coast. We climbed the viewing tower here to see Mount Kinabalu for the first time. Lee our guide, showed us a bread fruit. It is covered in flexible spikes and inside are slimy fruits encasing seeds. We reluctantly left the market and continued onto Pine Resort where we had lunch and then left for the Mesilau Nature Resort on the SE shoulder of Kinabu at an altitude of 1951 metres. Here we met Ansau a renowned Botanist who is an expert on Pitcher Plants. We had a fascinating nature walk for 90 minutes where we were able to see a whole variety of different sizes of pitcher plants and to learn about this plant and how it has adapted to the poor soil on the SE spur of Kinabalu. We were able to see the Nepenthes Rajah pitcher plant which can hold up to two litres of water. These plants are carnivorous and contain nectar to attract insects to drink from its neck. The nectar makes them drunk and they fall into the pitcher where they are digested by acidic juices. This area was discovered in 1961 by Professor Gibbon who discovered one pitcher plant that could hold 3 litres of water and one of them had a small rat in the pitcher!

A fascinating afternoon in the Mist Rain Forest on the flanks of  Mount Kinabalu as summed up by Ali Omel below

‘Standing surrounded by rainforest today, it is hard to understand the ease at which we are destroying it around the world. It’s extraordinary biodiversity and in particular the endemic pitcher plant made me think about how protected they both actually are in the long term, or were we standing in a place that would be gone in 50 years? How will it be possible to educate people universally of its true value in terms of its importance for so many global processes ? ‘

On our way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Kundasang War Memorial. The memorial is a series of gardens and is a permanent memorial to the Australian and British POW’s and the Malays who helped them while they were moved by the Japanese in 1945 in the tragic Death March from Sadakan on the East Coast of Sabah where there was a very large POW camp to Ranau near to the memorial. Out of the 2,428 prisoners who were forced to march only 6 Australians survived having escaped from the march and being helped by the local Malays. A very moving final part of our day which left all the group contemplating the inhumanity of man as summed up below by Hamish Sandison

‘The POW memorial was very emotional, led people to question how humans could allow such cruelty to happen.’

Mount Kinabalu National Park

Nepenthes Rajah (Pitcher plant) at Mesilau park

Botanist Ansou Gunsalam at Mesilau park

Baby Nepenthes Rajah at Mesilau park

Ganoderma Fungus at Mesilau park

Kundasang memorial

Australian Garden, Kundasang War memorial

Kundasang War memorial

Villagers thumbprints are taken for the 2010 census

Below the peak of Mount Kinabalu in Kundasang