My friend Ian Vong, invited me to join him to a hike to the Dered Kian National Park, at Bau Town area. It was a misty Sunday Morning, I had my drone with me, as I always admire the landscape in Bau area, so many mountain, it will be wonderful if I can take a few aerial photography of the Bau district, with the morning mist covering at the bottom of the mountain.
According to the local villages, there was a fire happening few year ago, which burn down most of the trees on the summit peaks. So that explain the bald summit peak, and the small trees there.
My hiking friend Ian Vong who runs a
facebook page at here, do check out his page as he did a lot of hiking in Sarawak, especially in Kuching.
We parked our car at the corn farm nearby, and walk close to 1km until we enter the jungle
That morning I was still worry that it would rain, but after seeing the sun is out, I felt relieve. Can stay dry on this hike, and fly my drone if weather permitted.
Passed by a lake, the water came out from the mountain. It was a limestone mountain, my impression for limestone mountain are they have sharp rock, never seen a limestone waterfall before, might have pinnacle, lots of loose rocks along the way.
We hiking through a private land, and there are a few farm house on the side of the land. But no one at home when we start our hike.
There are marking on trees, up until the foot hill of the limestone mountain, not sure where it leads to, as we did not follow the marking for this trip.
A few patch of pitcher plant can be seen scattered around the area. Note that my shoes is still dry up until now. So I plan to keep it dry along the hike ;)
Let the exploration begins..
Remember the lake earlier on, this is where the source of water coming from I guess. We are hiking forwards to the limestone mountain area. There is still a long way ahead, I must keep my shoes dry whatever it takes!!!
Into the Dered Kian national park boundary, lets see what this NP can offer us.
There are many beautiful rock formation throughout our hike, and no proper trail can be found, only a lot of sharp rocks. You will need to wear a hiking shoes with a good base to enable you to hike comfortably.
Most of the time we have to hike through thick vines and vegetation
We don't want to fall down and hit ourselves on this...
Discover a very beautiful pond, with water slowly flowing out from the mountain. These water are from the limestone mountain, and moss grow all over the rocks and soil nearby. Very beautiful, its Eden's pond, its a good place to camp here.
We started our hike at 8am that morning, and 2 hours into our hike, we reached the foothill or a gorge. When talking about gorge, what I normally encounter was beautiful stream, nice scenery, birds flying over the sky, but this is a very narrow gorge, so its just sharp limestone rocks, and mosses.
Many lose rocks, have to be cautious on every step forward
Very curious on where does all these shells coming from? My friend told me maybe it was the birds who eat the flesh inside, and put it here.
Notice a dead hammerhead worm being cut into two :(
There was a small viewing point (we assume it was), so Ian tried to hike up and check the place out, end up not much thing to see there, so I didn't go for it.
Its a 45 degree ascend, and we are eager to find out what nature bring us after we reach to the highest point.
There are trace of human, as I saw the tin of softdrink, cattle, and a rusty zink roofing.
wow.... we reached to a point where droplets of water dripping from above, and the sun's ray shinning on the water. It looks amazing!!!
My friend tried to hike further up, but the wall surface are wet and slippery, its not safe to go up anymore. And the place where the light come in its the highest point, we are almost there.
After a short break from the narrow gorge area, we proceed on in hope that we can reach the summit peak.
Weather is very hot, due to the bald limestone surface, there are not much trees, so hiking under the shade is not an option for us. Have to be expose under the sun.
We just keep on going and going, for me I haven't been hiking for almost two months, due to some sickness. So i'm always the last one, catching my breath, and trying to catch up, I'm old....
After we reached a certain height, Ian started to fly his drone, and encourage me to do so as well. I'm tired, and hot, so am a bit reluctant at first, but glad that he asked me to do so, as I manage to get some pretty cool aerial footage from above. Will try to get my video out soon if I have spare time.
See that narrow gorge, that's the place we explore that morning. Its beautiful but danger.
Some close up view of the peak, the trees on the peak had been burn down due to a open burning few years ago, and its now slowly grow back the vegetation.
As informed by Ian, there is no way for us to reach the summit due to the steep face, so we have to go back down again.
This water flows out from the limestone mountain, it flows out between many of the crack wall, and combine into one big creek.
The team decided to go back from a different route, which require to hike along the very muddy river. 😅😅😅 inside of me was like..... my shoes is still dry.... but just go with the flow.
The lake where we hike into the mountain this morning. We are finally out in one piece
An aerial view of the lake and the surrounding of the limestone mountains.
Mini pinnacles can be seen behind the mountain.
When I'm flying my drone near to the gorge peak, notice a bird keeps on circling that area too, and even fly close to inspect my drone.
This is us after climbing up on the steep limestone surface, taking a break from the hot weather. Remember the place where we rest...
I flew my drone further out, and we are right at the middle of this picture, remember the place we are, its just between the limestone visible surface, and the green vegetation, there is an invisible vertical line from top right to bottom left.
Now I flew further out again, and look at this picture, we are just at the middle and had been hiking for 5 hours, its a long way to summit, danger too.
That the end of my hiking post report, see you in my next hike, after the convid-19 virus outbreak is over.
TRAIL INFO (one way)
Distance - 6.87 km
Max Eleveation - 174 meter
Time Travel - 3h 30min
