A final good bye to the schools and plantation

A final good bye to the schools and plantation

It is amazing how fast the time has flown. My final week has been a whirlwind of goodbyes,

The schools gave me a great send off The kindergarten and the older ones had a great time making Happy Humana Hats for the party, we had singing and dancing from the students, statues and a fairly manic version of pass the parcel. The children and staff gave me such a warm and appreciative send off it was hard to leave.

We still had the culmination of my animals/environment project of a camp in the jungle for 10 of the oldest students, following on from our tree planting. Again things didn't quite go as planned but 15 of us finally got there with the requisite amount of boats, tents, food etc.

We had a packed itinerary with Hutan (see tree planting post) of river cruise, up another tributary of the Arctangent, where we saw huge monitor lizards, macaques using the rope brides across the river, very acrobatic, and my favourite proboscis monkeys. We then set up camp, none of the participants had used a tent before so that was a good learning experience, also getting them to cook dinner for all. It was an almost full moon light night but we were still able to see fireflies, unfortunately I slipped during the hunt and twisted my knee yet again.  I still persevered through the night walk through the jungle listening to its 'song' so complex but tranquil too.

The evening was perfectly finished with Milo and marshmallows and the musical accompaniment of the Hutan staff.

The next day it was of across the river to so caves and possibly meeting the Orang-utan research team , unfortunately they were some distance away although we did see the remains of a recently constructed nest so they had been in the area in the last couple of days.  The caves are situated in an area of virgin rain forest and it was a very different experience trekking through this. It is only open to educational and research teams.  I probably shouldn't have done it with my knee but I knew I wouldn't get another opportunity. It was very steep up to he caves and it wasn't felt safe 


for the students to come 
(although they did allow the old croc, me, up there) it is also a sight for swiflet nests which are harvested sustainably ie after the chicks have fledge. This provided an income to support the conservation and researchers in the area.

It was great to see and hear what the students and teachers got out of the experience and we made them environment ambassadors to spread this information to their family and friends. It is hope that a similar trip can be arranged at least once a year for the older students.

And so came the time to leave the plantation. We had had a great BBQ with Mr Chee and his family as his son's scout group were also visiting the forest for the weekend.

The weather is now improving and I was grateful to see something of the Borneo spring in that there were many more flowers and butterflies on my final journey out