Simon at Sepilok

It has hardly stopped raining for the past 72 hours now and the water levels are rising fast. Overnight the noise of the rain was so loud we could hardly hear each other talk in the room!

Well this morning it was our 2nd induction day at Sepilok. Half of the group had an 8am start and were busy with the cage cleaning and young orangutan bathing by the time my group were to start. We were supposed to be taking some of the orangutans out for exercise but unfortunately with all the rain they had to stay in their cages again today.

We are supposedly at the end of the rainy season now but it is dragging on this year. They expect it to be over before the end of February (worst case).
So instead of exercising the orangutans outside i was asked to help two of the full-time rangers take some food down to feeding Platform A for the 10am tourist viewing. This is where we saw the feeding session on the first day we arrived here - this time of course i had my green Sabah Wildlife Department shirt on and it felt totally different!

Armed with a big bucket of bananas i set off following the other guys who were carrying bundles of sugar cane over a bridge and INTO the flood waters that used to be a footpath to the platform. At this point i wished i'd brought waders with me as the water soon was over the top of my wellies and i had visions of leeches feasting on my toes. A bit further on and we were back onto the wooden walkways used by the tourists to reach the viewing area. Either side of the walkway looked like a muddy light brown lake and it was now perfectly obvious to me why they have these raised walkways in the forest!

Near the platform i was asked to put down my food for the rangers to take up the steps. I was pretty glad about this as the water they had to wade through was dangerously close to crotch height by this time.......!!!
So i watched part of the session with the tourists. But what a difference from the other day!! It was still raining hard and it appears that Orangutans are as reluctant as we are to leave the warmth and comfort of a bed even if there is food on offer. For the first 10 minutes nothing stirred. Then a single orangutan moved through some trees behind the viewing area and then sat high up, sheltering under a rapidly-fashioned "umbrella" of branches. Nothing else stirred. About half the tourists got bored waiting after half an hour, but within minutes of them leaving the remainder were treated to a real close-up as our friend with the umbrella decided the tummy rumbles were too much to ignore. He climbed down the tree and onto the railing of the viewing platform. The 30 or so people left were able to take some amazing close up pictures as the orangutan slowly walked around the platform and climbed another tree on the other side, before confidently swinging through the branches and sliding down the trunk of the main tree of the feeding platform. For me that was an amazing experience, watching all of those skills in action first hand. I had to leave to get back to the work session but heard later that another 10 orangutans joined the feeding session before the 1 hour viewing was over.
It just seems so crazy that some people travelled all this way to watch the orangutans here and then gave up waiting after less than half an hour. Oh well, it's their loss!!!

Pretty soon our little work taster session was over, most of the others in my group had been on towel washing duty so i didn't really miss anything, in fact quite the opposite!

I came back to the resthouse and set about doing some hand washing of clothes in a bucket in the basin/shower/loo/utility room. We are running on generators at the moment (the power goes on and off every few hours) so hot water was very limited. I don't think there's much hope of any of it drying in the next 24 hours but we'll see! I wonder how many people have posted pictures of damp underwear on their blog? Hmmm, probably more than is healthy.... :-)

This afternoon we all headed off into the nearest town to try to find a post office and change some money at the bank. Unfortunately both were closed as it was a Saturdays! Never mind, despite the rain we got to explore a market, eat some fancy cakes, ride the local buses and take a few more pictures of the flooded houses.






Tuna the cat was pleased to see us back home safely...
Maybe because he is bored with attacking Elle's hair extensions now...
















Tonight is our official "Welcome Party" at the resthouse. All of the rangers from Sepilok will be joining us and there are rumours of a karaoke machine. I will of course issue everybody with earplugs when it is my turn to sing. A necessary precaustion that those of you who have heard me on the PS2 Singstar before will understand perfectly.......