Poring Hot Springs

Hi all,

You’ll be pleased to know that today we went at a much slower pace! After nearly nine hours sleep, we headed off on a light walk around the lodge we are staying at. Ohhhhh the burn in our quads and calves. We passed through a bamboo garden and saw the local poring bamboo, which can reach a height of 30m. 

After going to the visitor centre, we ran into some of our group. We thought the group was meeting for breakfast at 8.30, but it turned out our guide had changed the plan last night and didn’t tell those of us who didn’t go to dinner. There have been quite a few miscommunications happening. We are trying not to let it spoil our trip, but I really miss Mudi (my guide from Egypt). He was so organised and made everything feel easy, which really is why you book a tour. 

We followed Ned, our guide, for the start of his orientation walk. But once we found out we had missed breakfast we went and had a delicious fresh fruit juice instead. Mine was apple and mum’s pineapple. 

Next we went to the nearby tropical and orchid gardens. These were ok, but we are here at the wrong time of year I think. Not that many orchids were in bloom. We did see some interesting leaves, and some trees that were hosts to many different fungi. Some mosquitoes also got to feast on my legs!!

We had a good laugh at the “don’t run” signs everywhere within the garden, because we could hardly even walk today let alone run. Every single step took a lot of concentration. And stairs - don’t even go there!!

Then we headed to the rainforest canopy walk. Unfortunately we had to ascend quite a lot of stairs so it was a struggle, but we made it eventually. We saw some gorgeous hibiscus flowers along the way, as well as some lizards. 

The walk was 41m above the ground and made of ropes and planks of wood. It was much more safe than it sounds - promise!! We had great views and stood on each platform taking them in. At one point we could hear a monkey, but a loud and annoying family coming up behind us ensured we didn’t see one. Hopefully later in the trip. We did see a few interesting things though - a small ant carrying a huge leaf up a tree, and some plants with very vicious looking thorns. 

After all of those activities, we headed for the Poring Hot Springs. These were built by the Japanese during World War II and geothermal energy causes the heating of the water. Apparently these are famous here, but we found them pretty underwhelming compared to springs at home. Instead of larger pools there were very small individual pools with taps, but these never seemed to fill more than about 10cm. The one pool that was filled already was so hot I couldn’t even put my feet in. So we had a quick swim in a cold pool and then once it started to rain we went for lunch. A scary moment in the cold pool happened when the parents of an 18 month old boy left him alone in our pool and stood 10-20m away not actively supervising him. He slipped off the step and started to struggle. Just as I was dashing towards him to lift him out of the water, his dad leapt into the pool and pulled him out. Pretty scary, and made me feel grateful we have so many supervision rules at home.

The rain got very heavy, and Mum and I enjoyed some local food for lunch at the hot springs restaurant under cover. Then we had a quick look at the local shops (I bought a Mt Kinabalu shirt) and now we are going to relax for the next few hours before we meet for dinner. 

Tomorrow we head to a very remote jungle lodge, so it might be a couple of days before I can post the blog again. I’m hoping next time I do, Collingwood have defeated Hawthorn!

Love to all

Claire
Xoxox