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JAMES
As you all know I am naturally a very lazy person, so there are few things that will get me out of bed at 2am. There are fewer things still that will have me climbing a mountain, and virtually nothing merits sitting in strong icy winds at the top of that mountain for an hour, in the dark! But I had heard people saying that the sunrise over the Borneo jungle, viewed from the top of Mount Kinabalu was something pretty special, so that is how we found ourselves sat 4095m up at 5am two days ago!
Hopefully the photos do it justice, but if they don't, trust me, it was the best sunrise ever! First there was a burning orange, and then a vivid red light rising in the distance, slowly throwing light over the endless mountainous jungle that was spread out to our left. To our right, as the light rose, we could see the city of Kota Kinabalu in the distance, and then the South China Sea shimmering in the early morning light. I am not normally one to get too worked up about sunrises and sunsets, I normally leave that to the women. I mean, it comes up and goes down every day, and sometimes it looks a bit nicer than other times. But this one was absolutely stunning, really beautiful.
The climb itself was really hard work, and the descent even worse. Sitting here now, more than 48 hours after reaching the bottom, my legs are aching worse than after the marathon. And Katie is faring even worse than me. Basically the track is only 8.72km from start to finish. On day one we walked 6km from the bottom to the Laban Rata rest station where we spent the night. Sounds easy, yeah? Well, the altitude at the bottom is 1886m, Laban Rata is at 3272m, and the summit (Low's Peak) is 4095m. So in those 8.72km we rose 2.2km. A one in four gradient. When you draw that out on a sheet of paper it doesn't look all that steep, but trust me, it is! It took us 4 hours to reach Laban Rata, then 2.5hrs to go from there to the summit the next day, 1.5hrs to go back down to Laban Rata for brekkie and then 3 hours to get back to the bottom. 11 hours in all, to walk just 17.5km! We walked that far in about 4 hours in New Zealand.
There are very few flat bits on the climb. It is basically a 6km long staircase as far as Laban Rata, and then after that it is walking, and in places scrambling over bare rock to the surface.
But for all our moaning at the time, and our even greater moaning at our pain after the event, it was absolutely brilliant. I think the view of the sunrise is my favourite view of the whole trip so far, and there have been plenty of good ones!!
Since then we have been chilling out at a 5 star resort on the coast, the Shangri-La Tanjung Aru. Our two days have been spent eating lots, drinking many cocktails and lounging around in the hot sunshine! Utter bliss! If it wasn't for the aching legs!!
Another early start tomorrow to catch a 7.30am flight to Sandakan in East Borneo to visit Turtle Island and see the Orang Utans! Should be wicked, but can't believe we are very nearly in our last week!!
KATIE
Well, I'm not sure I can add a much better description of the Mount Kinabalu climb than James already has!! Suffice to say, despite having walked 6km distance and about 1.5km upwards the previous day, despite getting up at 2am and heading out in the pitch black at 2.30am, and despite shivering whilst an arctic wind tried to blow me off a mountain top while clinging onto a rope, the sunrise was worth every second of it.
Now that I'm down, 48 hours later, in a 5 star resort with my legs barely working and feeling 10 times worse than after the marathon, I'm beginning to re-think.....
The thing is, if you have long legs like James it's not so bad, but the climb and descent are so steep that a good proportion of the steps / rocks to jump between were actually taller than the distance from my feet to my knees, and if you've ever tried to step up something higher than your knees you'll know it's not that easy, or good for you. And if you do this for the best part of 11 hours over 2 days you'll have some idea why my quads and knees hurt like b*ggery and I can't walk down steps without them locking out.....ok, not quite that bad, but not far off, ask James....
Having said all that, the view was absolutely spectacular and it was worth it.....really....
Looking forward to the rather more sedate experience of seeing turtles, bats and Orang Utans over the next few days, although a few more days here lazing on the beach wouldn't go amiss, I love it here!!
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