Just had our days off before the last placement. On saturday we wentr to Sepilok Laut which is a centre on the river not too far from the rest house. WE had the option to walk there or get the boat. I decided to walk, but most got the boat. It was a 5.5km walk through the rainforest up lots of hills - or as Dusain pronounced it in his malaysian accent 'hell' which describes it well!! WE got there at about 12.45, lookinjg forward to a swim in the river but were advised not to as cros are in there! With no working shower we resorted to throwing cold buckets of water over each other on the jetty :) WE had some lunch then took a boat to a local village and saw the children and gave them somepresent which they were happy with. We went back and had a chilled evening, had a bbq and then went to bed - we were sleeping all together in the reception area on the floor, wasnt the best nights sleep ive had with the girl nextto me wriggling so much, a malaysian mans phone going off and in the early hours of the morning Elisabeth screamed and woke us all up as a cockroach crawled over her pillow!!! We got the boat and car back to Sepilok Rest House and then got ready to go to Turtle Islands National POark. For the next 2 days our group split into 2, so my group of 6 were doing turtle islands first. We left and took a very bumpy road to a river where we were catrching the boat. The boat travelled thrgouh mangrove swamps and then went out to the sea to one of the islands where we stopped for lunch. We then went to Selingan Island where we were staying for the night. We went to the beach and snorkelled, where we could stay only until 6pm as the turtles could then be coming up the beach to lay their eggs from then on. We saw sea snakes in the water - luckily we were out by the time they were there! We had cold showers and then met our guide who gave us info about the GReen Turtles and we watched a video on them. From then on we had to stay in the restaurant oo, only when we had given up for the night could we go back to our rooms. WE had dinner and then had to wait until 'Turtle Time' was called which meant the 1st process of the cycle - where the female comes onto the beach to loay her eggs. Cards, chatting and reading passed the time, we were expecting to be waiting for a while as the previous night the first landing was at 11pm. But luckily at aroudn 9pm we got called, so everyone (around 40 people) scrambled to get their cameras and shoes and ran to the end of the beach. We saw the turtle laying her eggs in a hole she had dug in the snad, there were 64 eggs which wasnt many as the average is 110! The workers collect the eggs straight away into a bucket. The turtles laying eggs at the moment are Green Turtles and the eggs ltake 40-60 days to hatch. We then went to process 2 where we went into the hatchery, the eggs were put into a hole and wiremesh put around it and then covered in sand. If the rnest is warm temp the eggs will be girls and if cold will be boys!! We then went back to the restaurant and got choice to stay and wait to see if any eggs hatch or go back to rooms. Somepeople stayed but after 2 hours everyone left apart from us 6! WE were becoming pros at s***head and slowly getting more sleepy! 6 went down to 5 at about 12.15, wecarrioed on playing cards, james slept and us girls were determined they would hatch even though we had been warned they probably wouldnt as not many nestlefts from 2 months ago. At 1.15am everyone wenty to bedapartfromDawn and I, we didnt want to go coz we thought as soon as we did theyd hatch. But we eventually gaveup at 2.30am. Then had to get up at 6am to get boat to other island for breakfast! WE heard ono eggs hatched in the end.

We made it back to the rest house at 9ish to then go out again to visit the caves. Wetook the car to Gomantong Caves where swiflets nest, these arecollected and sold for birds nest soup, made of feathers and saliva - they fetch 2000 US dollars per Kg!! The cave is covered in guano (bird and bat poo) andlive with cockroaches - I was lucky (!?)enough to have a bird poo on my shoulder!! We saw the ladder which the people climb to get the nests - around 60m high up what looks like a roper ladder - v dangerous!

Afterwe went to Kinabatangan River, and went on a little boat to watch wildlife down the river. It was really cool, we sawwild boar, baby croc, silver leafed monkeys, macaques, proboscis monkeys, storkbilled and blue eared kingfishers, eagle and a Oriental DArter(or snake bird). We then made our way back to the rest house, was knackered after 3 1/2 hrssleep sowent to bed early!!

Today I've started last placement in the clinic and quarantine with the baby orangutans, theyre gorgeous. Today I took out Afiq who is just under 1 yr - he has to havealot of encouragement to climb the ropes as he just wants to cling to me!!! in the afternoon we took 3 bigger ones out, my one - Otan - wouldnt go in her cage when i was trying to put her back, she started climbing on the cages and pulled the lightbulb down and it smashed on the floor!!! opps!!

Will write a blog on more of this placement soon :)

bye bye for now! xx