A week in Kinabalu!

Just spent a wonderful week (7-13 June) at Kota Kinabalu (days 1-2 JIA Homesite KK Times Sq, 6-7 D’Borneo Hotel) , Kinabalu Park area (days 2-5 Nikgold Resort) and Manukan Island (day5-6 Sutera Sanctuary Lodge)!

Thinking of how to escape the heat in Singapore, me and wife found this really cheap airfare on AirAsia ($102 return per pax) and decided to “just do it”!

Arrival at night and supper! Tissue thosai near our hotel

Modern room

Next morning early jog along coast

Check out SAFMA Sabah Fish Market while on the run

The U turn point of run route

First stop after breakfast was to the Ramsar(?) Wetlands park..(took a Grab ride there, real cheap 🙂

Yummy breakfast just 2 min from hotel

Really wet!!

Then came back to checkout of hotel and grab a lunch and collect our car for the drive up to the next place…Nikgold Resort at Kundasang (and it’s really near to the Kinabalu Park entrance by the way)

Lunch at same restaurant where we had breakfast

Superb view of Mt Kinabalu from hotel

At Kundasang on day 2 evening

The next 1.5 days were spent going into Kinabalu Park to walk the trails and roads inside and to see birds, haha…we spent most of the time going along the Power Station Road as that seemed the best option for bird spotting (in trails itself, it was rather dense forest and rather poor lighting)

Kiau Gap

Memorial for 2015 earthquake victims

Timpuhon Gate where the route up to the mountain officially starts

Deep fake, haha

Route map to the top

Indigo flycatcher

Chestnut hooded laughing thrush

Bornean treepie

We also took a drive to Poring Hot springs and did the Kipungit waterfall walk and tree top walk, and soaked in the hotsprings 🙂

Kipungit waterfall

Very fruitful!

Swings a lot! And caught in downpour, so we headed back to shelter and waited for an hour

Water for the hot spring .. it took forever to fill the tub

Next morning, we headed to Sosodikon Hill to see the 360 panorama of the Kundasang area …well worth it!

And then it was time to check out and head back to KK, where we returned the car at Sutera Marine club and took the free transfer to Manukan Island!

Sunset view point

Serenaders! No other folks at the resort for dinner until a little while later…very quiet on a Sunday night

After a morning swim/snorkelling (not much coral to see, some fishes around though further away from jetty), it was time to head back to the mainland again for our last phase of the trip…

Lunch at Welcome Seafood Restaurant

And that lunch kind of marked the end of the trip (as Chien was not feeling too good after that, so skipped massage, night market etc etc for rest of the day) and until it was time to leave the next morning!

Fraser’s Hill 2023

Second year in a row going there for birding, and around the same time (21-25May) as last year

Left on Sunday morning 6am, and immigration checkpoints were totally clear at both sides! Hooray.

The total drive time is about 7 hours, and with two rest stops and lunch at Bentong, we arrived around 3pm (so, 9 hrs total time from dep-arr)

Day1 and 2 sightings

Highlight of the second day was the 3 siamangs we saw off the road, not too high up (from Bishops trail about 100 m in anticlockwise direction, right side). This is the largest of the gibbons family!

Day3 highlights – lifer Fire Tufted Barbet

Day3 was great for the long tailed broadbill and two barbets, including a lifer for me (see caption above)

Day 4 final day red headed trogon

Last morning there, we set off before breakfast and hoped to see the RHT, and voila, it appeared near the Hemmant trail exit (near to the Bishop trail entrance)! Glad we took the advice of a Indian couple who said we should be out around 730 as the birds would be already active then..

Along the drive down to the Gap, stopped many times as could hear the birds but not able to see any clearly. A roadside construction worker told us to go look for sultan tits near the Pines resort (kiv next trip 🙂 and right at the Gap, met a Malaysian border and while chatting, saw two huge hornbills fly pass (rhino HB?)

We then headed to Sekinchan to stay one more night so as to see the PADI fields and eat seafood…lunch was at Kuala Kusu Baru?spelling and this leg of journey took about 3(?) hrs..visit the paddy gallery to get an informative tour and small bag of rice with the RM5 ticket to enter the gallery.

Stayed at PADI Central, Sekinchan

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast at Sekinchan town and then made the 5.5hr journey to Mid Valley Mall for some shopping and late lunch. And we were home 6pm, without getting caught in too bad a jam at the Causeway!