Hi's, Low's and freedom !

Freedom !!!

After 3 months going on what feels like 3 years we are now officially finished with the expedition.

Don't get me wrong, both Charl & I have had an incredible experience here with Raleigh - but we're both completely drained both physically & mentally.

You may have noticed now Charl's been back on the blog the difference between the kind of experience a community phase offers to an environmental site like the ones I've visited. Charlotte has lots of photos of grinning malayisan kid's & water pipes and I've got lots of trees. Getting quite fond of trees - you know where you stand with them and don't have to smile and nod and pretend you understand what they're saying all the time.

After being back at fieldbase my first trip out was to the village of Long Pa'sia where our group's do their jungle trekking. It's a remote village about a four hour off road drive from the closest town. We were driving down for a presentation ceremony to commemorate the introduction of Raleigh to the village as this was the first time we had used this area for trekking. A small group of us are going back out after expedition so I'll write some more on the village then.

(Long Pa'Sia)

(The inevitable flat - the road to LongPa'sia was well known for its flat tyres. One guy had four flats on his trip in and had to go off blagging tyres of any shape or size he could find from any locals. We only noticed this one after the back end swung out going round a corner and almost rolled us over.)

The ceremony included the village children doing a warrior dance where eight year old lads span around with foot long machetes in their mouths - you forget sometimes how totally different to the the UK this place is, social services would be evacuating the village back home but it's just part of growing up here. With this being such a remote community it was was actually really good to see how Raleigh has not only bought trade into the village but also offered a conduit for young lads to get out of there and perhaps find new opportunites. Three guys from the village came on the expedition as participants and I heard some of them might have had job offers from the main dive company in KK which represents a great opportunity for them.

Unfortunately this trip was rounded off with news of the worst kind. As some of you may have seen in the press back home one of our groups had been on a day trip to Sepilok orang utan sanctuary and coming back in two minibuses the first bus was involved in a accident. Two participants were severly injured and and a project manager and friend of ours called Toby was killed.

Toby

Just to say a few words on Toby. We only knew him for a months, a time that was unfortunately far too short, but in that time we had fun and got to know him. The only photo I had was this one of Tobes, me and Derek making fools of oursleves to the weather girls at Karaoke. In some ways though it's quite suitable as he was always up for a laugh and responsible for some great comedy moments. If by any fluke any of Toby's relatives or friends ever end up reading this we'd just like to say it was a pleasure working with him and that he was well liked by everyone on expedition - staff & participants alike.

There's not much more I can say really - anyone who knew Toby knew what a great guy he was. This accident has reinforced our belief that taking time out to do something like this has definitely been the right decision. The old cliche about you only live once etc.. is oh so true. You can spend years stockpiling money & possesions back home then something happens and before you know it your times run out.

It was a tough week back at fieldbase - we had a lot of work to do in the aftermath of the accident. Thankfully both of the participants with serious injuries were ok, although it was obviously heavily traumatic experience for all the group concerned and the expedition was in the balance for while. Thankfully everyone pretty much took the attitude of getting on with things and after a few days break at a hotel the group involved went back to finish the expedition working on the eco lodge they'd been building, fair play to everyone involved as some of these guys had been involved in pretty serious first aid at the accident scene, I'm not sure if I'd have felt like going back.

(One successfully dug hole!) (bathing at the Imbak falls) (the group - bless'em)

For the last eight days of expedition I was called back out to project site - Imbak canyon. I've talked about Imbak on a previous post so I won't say too much. It's a remote conservation area which the BBC recently filmed and expedition documentary in. I got there just in time to help them finish digging an eight foot deep hole where the foundations for a new bridge were going to go and trek a load of stuff out to the Ranger camp. The ranger's camp actually had satellite TV and as we finished the work with about four days left we got to catch up on some football - watching the Chelsea players bottle it in the Liverpool - Chelsea penalty shootout in the middle of an area of primary rainforest was bizarre (and of course highly amusing - unlucky Gatrell if you ever read this). We also got to give the rangers a couple of games of footy.

(Footy against the rangers - the bloke in the blue was far to quick and skillful for his own good. Still, if you notice that's me in the blue shorts and him heading towards the floor. Somethings don't change my tackling one of them)

The group were a good laugh and evening highlights included a game of 21 with truth or dare subbed into drinking as a penalty. 113 boys - amazingly I have found someone who is even worse than Ned & I. Paul - if you ever read this, sorry mate - ended the night dressed in women's clothes having been continually stitched with dares and having had to sink about half a tub of chilli sauce and eat several cloves of raw garlic.. unlucky

The highlight of this week was a hike we did up to the top of one of the canyon's ridges. The view we got at surnise was incredible and walking along the ridge was like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie - we were basically walking along a high ridge on springy moss with mist in the tree's and spider webs coating everything (unfortunately my photography skills - or lack of - meant I couldn't quite capture it properly on camera)

(crossing the river at Imbak, helped as ever by the rangers, possibly the most patient people I have ever met)

(Decamping our ridge site at sunrise)

(more jungle - the view of the outside of the Imbak canyon ridge)

I stayed at Imbak until the end of the expedition's working phase. We then returned to KK & put on an end of expedition party at a beach resort - Bukit Nagra - for all the participants. Theme was Pirates (handily as I still had my Danum Valley costume). Unfortunatley for some - including me - the party was cut short as some general incompetence from head office had meant several participants were on 0730 flights back the following morning. This resulted in me having to drive some of them to the airport for 0530 and given we didn't get back from the party until 0230 the previous morning I wasn't in the best of moods the following day. However the participants were gone and we were free, knackered but following three months of continually looking over your shoulder to make sure there wasn't an 18 year old boy about to drop kerosene in the fire or fall off a cliff etc... it felt good to finally relax. And of course now we could have a drink !

(Sunrise over the low lying morning mists)

(broken down on the way out of Imbak - the standard 25 people crowded around all offering competely different and ultimately useless advice!)

(Washing up liquid and water slide on the beach - site of several nasty friction/sand burn injuries including one on my hip)

(Random water buffalo walked past the party in the sea - guess they get pretty hot too ?)

This is turning into a massively long blog entry so I'll save the next

bit for a few days time - stay tuned for pictures of the staff team "relaxing" by climbing a 4100m mountain and the mandatory pictures of drunk people at the staff party.

(Charl, Tarik, Dave & I)

(Pirate barbecue skills on the go)

(Bukit Nagra - highly recommend it it if anyone's ever out this way)

Thanks again for the comments

- Steve & Alex, catch you guys soon

- Dad - never seen so many dawn starts in my life - my body actually wakes me up about six at the moment, hoping it's a habit I can ditch pretty quick afterwards

-Elly, good luck in getting chopping to trawl through all of this but if you succeed hope it helps to get him back on the road.

Cheers all

Si & Charl