We caught a bus at midday to an altitude of 1500m - the Mt Kinabalu national park. Mt K is the highest peak in SE Asia at 4100m. Higher than Mt Cook even. Spectacular and gnarly in appearance.
Josh, Claire and Jam ascended while Megan and I stayed back, as Megan wasn't confident of fitness and altitude sickess issues. We made the most of the park though, walking around the lower trails for 5 hours, covering 10kms. The rainforest was beautiful, and at that altitude, very similar to NZ bush. 2 nights we stayed in the park, while the other comlpeted the 2 stage climb. They did 3 or 4 hours on the first day, then rose at 2am the next day to reach the rocky and slippery summit before spectacular sunrise. Apparently the 50 people allowed to climb each day were falling like flies, vomitting on the side of the track due to altitude sickness. One person was stretchered down! But they made it those rugged bastards, but were out of action for 2 days afterwards!
Megan and I met this Mexican guy- Camilo- who was also not climbing, and decided to travel together back to KK once the others got back down. He works for Canterbury Uni it turned out, but travels the world doing research. Good guy actually. We headed back to KK in the heaviest rain we had seen yet.
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