I'd always dreamed of coming to Borneo to see wild orang-utans. Along with Indonesia, these are only two counties in the world that you can see them roaming free today. Much of their rainforest habit has been destroyed. Although coming to see orang-utans at the rehabilitation centre is not seeing them completely in the wild, it's important for their future conservation. The money you pay to enter the centre goes towards the rehabilitation of these great apes being released back into the wild.

We took a bus ride from Kota Kinabalu, which goes to Sandakan. As soon as we rode out of the city, the surrounding areas were lush tropical rainforest. We also passed Mount Kinabalu national park, which is the tallest mountain in South East Asia. We've seen enough mountains in South America, so didn't want to or need to stop there. Most of the journey passed through winding roads, on high mountain passes. It kind of reminded me of being in South America. The journey was around 6 hours, and we had a bit of a crazy driver. They did call out when we arrived at Sepilock though, as we were the only tourists who got on the local bus!

We got dropped at the side of the road and our lodge; the forest edge resort is around 3km away from the main road. We weren't looking forward to walking there in the heat with our backpacks. We started to walk up the road and there was a local man and a woman waiting at the side of the road with a small car. The man offered us a lift to our lodge for a small fee, so we gladly took him up on his offer. I'm so pleased we did, as it seemed longer than 3km, more like 3 miles! We'd have been sweltering if we had to walk all the way! We checked into our resort. It was lovely, set amongst the jungle with great views. We booked a dorm thinking there would be lots of people, but luckily it was just us in the room, for half the price of a private room. We met a guy who'd been staying at our previous hostel in Kota Kinabalu, he recognised us so got chatting to him and his Chinese partner for the evening. We all had dinner together in our resort, the food was excellent. We grabbed an early night as we've to be up at the crack of dawn to visit the orang-utan sanctuary.

Orang-utans

We had breakfast and took a walk up to the rehabilitation centre, which was just a few minutes away from our resort. Although the sun wasn't out, it was still a red hot day. We paid our entrance fee, and camera fee (it seems to be the thing in Asia to charge you for the use of your own camera) and went through to the viewing platform. They have two daily feeding sessions, one at 10am, and one at 3pm. Your entrance ticket allows you to stay for the day and to go to both viewings. We waited patiently by the viewing platform until the trainer carried a basket on his back containing food for the orang-utans.

It was sweltering hot by now as the sun came out, so John took cover in the shade, I stayed waiting in the boiling sun. We watched the ropes looking for tel-tale signs that the apes were coming. Then quite a few people started looking high up in the trees and there was an orang-utan swinging it's big long arms. It was coming down the forest canopy for feeding time, which it must be able to tell the time for. It came to the platform and the ranger tipped out lots of fruits and canes for them to eat. He picked up some fruits and sat with his back towards us feasting on his findings. Then a few more came down, hanging from the trees, along with a pig tailed macquake. One orang-utan and a Macquake had a scrap over the food, the orang-utan got scared off, so the Macquake had his food. The others were sat near the ranger eating their breakfast. When the ones that came down for food finished, they went off to climb the ropes into the trees out of sight. They are such graceful animals, and it's just effortless them gliding through the trees. We were lucky enough to see 4 or 5 orang-utans just at feeding time. They are wild animals, if the trees are fruiting, they may not even come down to the feeding platform.

After the feeding session, most people carried on walking the trails along the boardwalk. Having read people's reviews online, they said if you just hang around for a little while after everyone has gone, it's likely that more orang-utans will come out. It was quite noisy when all the tourists were there, especially when the kids are excited and shouting. So we decided we'd hang around in the shade and wait for a bit, and hope that we get to see more of them. Besides, we would have a better view of them with less crowds. While we waited we saw a black squirrel, which was coming down from the trees to collect food, then it took supplied up the tree. It must have come down and gone back up around 4 times.

We waited there for around 20 minutes, then sure enough, a mother came down with a baby clinging on her back. She went straight for the feeding station and sat down with her baby gorging on some bananas and what ever else she could get her hands on. It's amazing how human like some of their gestures really are. The mother was cradling her baby and being tentative, just like any mother would be. You could see the bond between the two, which they will share until the infant is around 6 years. It takes this long for the mother to nurture it's child until it's ready to go out into the wild alone. The mother then climbed back up the ropes with the baby dangling around. It sat there on the ropes eating its food, while the baby played it's own games for entertainment. It was lovely to be only one in a handful of people experiencing these special moments. We stayed watching them until the mother climbed the trees, well beyond our sights.

After that, it was nearly time to leave, as the centre closes for lunch. We walked around the boardwalk, with the rest of the platform to ourselves. We stopped and I saw an orang-utan swinging in the trees right by us, then his friend came to join him. I've never seen an orang-utan without so much hair, but he was nearly baldy! He had a cheeky little smile though and it was a pleasure to watch them playing. I think they were about teenagers age. We were lucky to see them just us and a ranger, but of course us stopping to look attracts other people, so we weren't the only ones for long. They came so close to us and walked on the wall right next to us. We had to leave as they were closing the park for lunch. We were able to watch a video about the rehabilitation of orang-utans, which was both informative and interesting.

After the park closed, we wandered down to the banana cafe down the road for lunch. The food was basic, but we were just filling time until we retuned to the centre. We had 2 hours to kill, so made use of their free wifi. Then we went back to watch the afternoon feeding session. When we arrived at the cafe on sight, there were 3 orang-utans in the trees right above everyone, so without even going back to the centre, we saw more!

Then we entered the site again, just as we went through the gates, there were 2 more orang-utans on the tin roof and they were knocking down some branches. The rangers told us to stay back and mind our heads. The orang-utans were making a lot of noise, but then they disappeared over the other side and went round the back. There were a big crowd of people just on the way in, which was because more orang-utans were there swinging about in the trees. I couldn't believe how lucky we were at seeing so many of them so soon after arriving back there, compared to this morning. As we walked along the path, some orang-utans were following along on the fencing, but they went past and ahead of everyone, that was pretty cool!

We proceeded to the feeding area, not even needing to stand there and wait to see them. But as soon as the ranger came with food, there were quite a few orang-utans that came down to the platform. We watched them eating lots of bananas, it seems these are their favourite foods as they didn't last very long! The mother and baby made another appearance and she sat there with the baby eating, while the infant played around. There were so many of them hanging around this afternoon, that we just stayed at the platform until it was nearly time to leave. At that point, some wasps started following me about. I was all panicked after what happened in Labuan Bajo, so kept running away and they kept following me. Luckily I didn't get stung by them, so promptly left the centre to get away from them! I've thoroughly enjoyed my time seeing the orang-utans, but am looking forward to spotting them in the wild on the Kinabatangan river!