Gathering with Kinta 01 Ex Scouters!

These are some of the best scouts of Kinta 01 during the 90s!

December's expedition shots compliments of Soon Wen

These are contributions from Soon Wen. He managed to capture visitors to our camp, the froggie FROG and a shot of us cooking our sumptuous dinner. The speed of the rapid could be seen better from this shot of his!

Gopeng-Tanah Rata Expedition Dec 2008 (Day Two)

We woke up around 630am embracing the cooling and moist weather from the continuous rain since yesterday night. It was apparent that the river is not an option in the early hours from its fierce current and murky water. It was good that we have sufficient water for us to cook our morning breakfast! Breakfast was a variety from Baked Beans and Sardine to Scrambled Egg to warm Porridge and Warm Noodle Soup.

The initial part of the walk shall be most challenging given the slopes, wet terrain from the rain and river crossing. We started around 9am after we clean the site at Camp 1.

The river is fast and swift and we formed human chain to support each other through. The depth is approximately 3-4 feet and we completed the river crossing safe and sound as usual!

Our master Orang Asli guide, En Talib and his son in law prove to be the best guide in town. We learnt a few tricks from them on preventing leech attack and apparently tobacco does wonders to protect our feets and socks!

More hiking snapshot of us! Despite rations have been consumed, the humidity and wetness from the rain has added on weights on our items in our backpack!

The ending of a bloody leech after being drown in salt! You can see some of us clearing our leeches at the riverside!

We also spotted a spot where the bear dug up a bee hive for its honey and at another spot the wild boar dug for their delicious food!

We spotted various wild mushroom of various colours during our hike. (Photos courtesy of Sir Selvin)

The river remained the main water source is also very rich in fishes. Our guide easily caught us "Ikan Jelawat" for dinner. While the river is fierce it is also gentle at certain parts and the water remained clean and crystal clear.

We can definitely certify it as the "BEST MINERAL WATER IN TOWN"

The flora here is a mixture of secondary and primary. Bamboo appears to be sprouting everywhere and as they fight for the sun shine, the seems to be protuding upwards towards the sky. Various berries type trees and flowers are sprouting everywhere too bringing variety to the jungle. (Pictures courtesy of Sir Selvin)

The "Ulat Gonggok" here is long and wide. At a glimpse it might looks like a "lipan".

As usual, we broke for lunch at the dam and we do a major leech cleaning here as the walk from here onwards shall be relatively leech free since we shall be hitting plantation road thereafter. We again have our sumptous energy bar and BBQ sliced Chicken Meat with bread for lunch. It is cooling by the dam and it is a windy lovely spot!

The above is the famous Rajah Brooke Butterflies which we can see by the dozens beautifying the serenity of our walk. Below you can see more wild flower species which are rarely seen nowadays

We managed to chat with some of the Orang Asli which are friendly and despite within the jungle, it amazes us of the standard of living that they have with the usage of solar power and water source all the way from the mountain top. Motorcycle has becomes their major source of transportation and they mainly still depends on firewood for cooking.

We managed to see that some of the pets that the Orang Asli have includes a fox, squirrels, parrots and chicken.

Finally we reached base camp and TJ came to visit us. Overall, we felt we achieved a lot and we have learnt more life skills from this expedition. We were sure to come back and this time we shall hike all the way to Tanah Rata!

This concludes our Gopeng- Tanah Rata Expedition Dec 2008 Log.