Rediscovering The Forest

Over the weekend we decided to jungle trek up to the Tanjung Taun Lighhouse and, apart from the exercise, we rediscovered our love for trail walking.

After the cycle up to the peak the day before we found out that there were at least to walking trail that the visitors used to climb and we got interested to explore. I initially had the audacious idea of riding the trail down but I was advised by one of the workers doing maintenance there it would we difficult. Luckily I was not stubborn as usual. From the beginning I already decided to use the trail that would take us up via the secluded beach and immediately as we entered the gate Sam, little Mar and I turned left into the trail. It was almost 1030. We started to walk along a low gradient path before climbing down to a spot where seems to be a dry watering place for small animals. From there we walked up and incline that was quite steep but still not difficult. Walking under a canopy of the green gave us a certain nice feeling. We continued walking up and down stepping over a log or two crossing our path. I was on the lead for the obvious reason, Mar in the middle and Sam a sweeper of sort for Mar. All of us into our own mode while walking. I was thinking of the next path as well as how I missed all the green and trekking. The think is if you have not been doing it for awhile certain kind of edginess creep in you. Sometimes worrying over nothing. Having Mar and Sam behind me making me more protective I guess. Once in a while I stopped to check on them. Now the gap between the three of us was about 5 metres in between each other. I did not mean to push time but we started a bit late and we were two hours before our check out time. Assessing our progress so far I was confident we would make it back with enough time.

Then, we came down to the best part of the trail. An unspoiled beach. Before we reach there along the path was an old perigi. I did not check what was it there before but judging from he look of the perigi I guess it must be some kind of historical landing and dwelling.

The beach was beautiful to us and with wind blowing cooling us a bit we sat down to rest. Mar straight away jumped onto the beach and it took me great effort to stop her from playing with the water. Since she was only in a sandal I did not want for her to wet them as it would be slippery and difficult for our next climb. On the clearing nearby Jabatan Perhilitan’s contract workers were building new beautiful facilities for visitors to the place. I could not help but worry for the place despite their good intention to make the place a more convenient place for people to take a break of camping some Malaysians that I called idiots would in no time spoil the place with their behaviour. I have seen too many beautiful nature turned into a rubbish dump to justify my worry.

I hate to interrupt Sam and Mar in their reverie and pleasure of sitting under the tree with the cool sea breeze blowing at them but we had to move. Grudgingly we continue our walk and now facing was the the ‘tonggek’ climb. I told Mar, just to appease her, that was going to be the last climb, little that we knew what a climb it was. No, she was not complaining of being tired but she was even louder because she needed to go :)).

Slowly we inched up until we reached the peak to rest a bit before we continued to walk along a level path towards the lighthouse. At our pace we reached the lighthouse slightly more than one hour. We we drenched in sweat.

We used the tarmac road going down and we were back at the gate in 20 mintues. the next time we are going to back track the trail down.