Monday, November 29, 2010

Camping Templers park

I have wanted to start spending more time in Malaysia’s outdoors. Since I had a couple of days off Sunday thru Tuesday, and hoped it would be less crowded than usual. I’m still waiting for my car to repaired so I asked my girlfriend to drop me off and pick me up on Tuesday evening.
We left Saturday late afternoon, I’d originally planned to return to Commonwealth park and use the campground as a jump off or base camp and follow the stream up into the jungle. Well we arrived a bit later than I’d anticipated so it was dark when we got to the campground. Upon arrival we found the place packed with local scouts…hmmm, now what? I asked one of the leaders if they were using the entire camp? Yes they were.
So plan B. We drove to Templers, I have never been to the falls, and I’d heard there was space to camp there so we stopped to check it out. We saw a map showing the distances and I decided it was too far to blunder about in the dark so I’d come back in the morning.

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  I got started and walked up the paved path to the “swimming pool “  past that, up some stairs to the trail. I passed a reservoir, to the first zig zag concrete bridge.
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Most of Malaysia’s parks and outdoor places have great little covered rest stops along trails and walkways so when the inevitable rains come you have a place to shelter.
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This was the first of many along the trail, you can see my pack where I stopped to get some photos. I continued on and so far I seem to be alone on a Sunday morning, well it is late November and the start of the monsoon season so I guess I’m the only one brave (read silly) enough to be out here.
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So far the trail is easy and well used and the scenery is great, really a pleasant walk.
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I did run into a few places where the trail was blocked by some deadfalls and had to navigate around, under or over them. I did lose the trail once and had to do a bit of backtracking to find it. But it wasn’t too bad.
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This one I had to crawl under… And a few had to be scrambled over, but the trail gets enough use it is relatively easy. I continued on the the falls, being passed once by a couple day hiking. I had originally planned to camp near the falls, but when I got there the trash left piled up near the provided trash can and near one of the shelters kinda put me off. The trail is supposed to be a loop but it was pretty much blocked past the falls so I spent some time resting and picking off the leeches I’d acquired along the trail. Speaking of leeches I hadn’t noticed any on the way, I brought leech socks but hadn’t put them on, so I had a few on my legs near the ankle, also one had gotten under my shirt on my lower back. I got the leech socks on and tucked in my shirt to and prepared to back track and find a place to camp.
Of course now I started noticing the leeches and would knock them off when I saw them. I went back to a clearing on the opposite side of the stream, where someone had built a bamboo platform which looked like a good spot to camp.

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Here are a couple of poor shots of the falls.





                                                                                                                                                                                       Here’s the platform someone had built
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I set up my hammock and changed out of my wet clothes and socks. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and staying out of the rain sitting in my hammock.
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The clearing was good, however finding trees to hang my bed was a bit hard but I managed. Since it’s mostly damp, and dry wood is hard to find, I decided to wait till evening to start a fire. I planned to try cooking rice in bamboo, and heating some curry in a large piece of split bamboo but as luck would have it once I did get the fire going it started raining and put out the fire… So what did I learn? Well, bring a second tarp to rig above a cooking area. I did have my stove so I could cook the rice but it wasn’t as fun as the bamboo I wanted to try. I also spent some time purifying  water.
I saw quite a few ants and some of them were huge! I have read about bullet ant and don’t know if that’s what they were and didn’t let them near enough to find out if they’d bite me. There were a few leeches around and I had to be careful as they’d work their way up the socks to just below my knee and find bare skin to attach to. I had read the some of the Orang asli (native people) will make “tea” from tobacco which will deter the leeches, I tried it but I’m not sure… I found I leech in my boot (I was sockless) but it wasn’t eating me, so I’m not sure if it was already full and looking for a way out or if it didn’t like the tobacco. I’ll have to test it further.
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My leech socks…

I did have a problem with my boots. I have read on some websites that a lot of shoes or hiking boots don’t last very long in the jungle. Well I have a pair of REI (made by Merrell I think) boot which I’d used in the US for about a year that I brought with me. They lasted one day… The sole separated from the boot that evening, I couldn’t even fix it with duct tape, too wet so I tied them on with the laces.
Other than the soles falling off the boots are in great shape… so I’ll have them re-glued and see if that’ll last at all… So if you bring footwear to the Malaysian jungle make sure they’re stitched! IMG_0673                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
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I had arranged to be picked up the next evening so that afternoon I packed up and headed out the the parking area. It was a great trip and each time I go out I learn a little more. I plan on trying to get on a jungle coarse here or go out with some locals.

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