20.12.07
Gunung Datuk 2
I'm back! Phew! what a hel* of a sem break so far, pack to the neck with activities, going to JB more than I go Orchard and seeing my fellow com members more than I see my Mom. Just got back from Berkelah waterfall yesterday and decided not to procrastinate my blogging any much longer. Seems to be going for treks faster then I can blog about them. ( Not to mention I manage to squeeze in one Northern Island Expedition into my schedule due to the cancellation of Berkelah recce). Shall blog about my second experience (within 1 week haha) up Gunung Datuk. Something special about it as it going to be my first trek leading participants up =)
Random pictures at JB. You all know whats Tauge? haha make a guess.
Motorcycles frenzy. Wonder how the riders that park their bike in the inner most rows get their bikes out.
It was an adrenaline rush sort of morning to start things off. I was suppose to meet Geraldine at Sengkang before making our way down to Kranji but something happen ( I shall not say what) and in the end we decided to meet the rest at JB itself. But apparently some of the paricipants were running late and in addition to the morning madness at custom, we almost miss train! Couldn't imagine what would become of us if we really missed it. Nevertheless all safe and sound and off we go as we board the train.
Participants of this Datuk trip.
Random pictures on the train.
Didn't manage to take pictures of the scenery outside the train the other time as it was a night train and everything was pitch black.
Weather has been exceptionally nice to us (even during Berkelah) and it was so much sunnier and dryer compare to the recce I had which I mentioned in my previous post. But don't know what happen to the train driver this time round, he kept over shooting stations and end up a lot of precious time was wasted trying to slowly reverse the train into position. Our initial plan was to reach Tampin at 2 pm but we ended up reaching there at 4+. So that kind of affect our pace of ascend things got snowballed.
Sunny sunny day at Tampin.
On a side note, had a very late lunch at Tampin station (luckily da-baoed some chicken rice to est on the train) and was "cheated" blatantly by the Macik (malay lady) of the food store opposite the station. Order Nasi Goreng Ayam from her and according to the board its stated RM$3.50. When the food comes, she wanted to charge me RM$5! Angry! She think I'm an idiot is it? Yes the board is in Malay but $3.50 in English is the same as $3.50 in Malay dude! In the end she also quite embarrassed when I pointed out to her the price and reduce the price to RM$4. Sigh* Dun argue with old lady so decided to pay RM$4. I think next time I shall give that shop a missed.
Even the chicken rice I bought at JB had inflated price due to its proxmity to Singapore. RM$4. I could get it at RM$2-3 at other places.
Anyway, back to the trek. Although its the same trek but it is a totally different experince from the other time. Due to the nice weather, the trek is much less slippery and not to mention we didn't see half a leech! Quite disappointed as the participants and I came totally armed with salt spray and extra salt to make slat spray haha. But that aside, the trek up also had its difficulty as this time round we are carrying full load compared to the recce during which we traveled light. In addition, one of the participant had difficult somewhere about 1/3 of the trek and hence I "adopted" her bag for the rest of the journey up. Pant* pant* Good for my standing board jump training haha.
Picture we set off!
Check out my bag after I adopted a participant's bag aka the "red fridge"
Because of the good weather, a lot more critters appeared along the trek. (Less leeches. Don't know where they gone to. Maybe they smell our salt spray haha) Saw the pro-cat at the summit again haha. Think its the permanent resident up there. Saw it kind of later in the evening and didn't want to blind it with my flash so didn't take a photo of it.
Theres a lot of grasshoppers at the summit. You have been warned haha!
After about 2 hours of climbing (didn't had the luxury of a lot of breaks in between due to the late train) we reach the summit with less than 1/2 hour of daylight left. To make things worst, it was the weekend and there are already about 4 different groups of locals there camping. Result: No time to go to the summit before night fall, no time to go the the water point ( which affected much of our cooking) and no space to set up our tents ( only manage to squeeze out space after negotiation with the people there for 2 tents out of the 4 we bought up). Sigh*
Activites after sunset.
The night turn out fine for most of the participants I presume haha. Food, warmth and tents to sleep in. Glad that the com stick together with each other throughout the night which wasn't exactly easy. We first had to worry about stuff like toilet and safety of the participants in the midst of so many strangers and we because we let the participants cook and had their dinner first and settled them down, we had our dinner at about 10+ =( (not to mention water was running low and cooking with limited water is not really an easy task). And due to the limited tents we mange to set up, most of the ended up sleeping in the open throughout the night. Its bone chilling cold at night! The sudden gush of wind is crazy. You have to be there to experience it yourself. Didn't sleep much that night think I only mange to catch 30 mins of sleep. It was an exceptionally long night waiting for dawn to arrive but luckily the com each had ourselves for company.
The much awaited morning arrived and the participants finally got a chance to go up the summit and claim their prize for the climb up. Same peak but quite different looks compare to the other time. The wind was much stronger this time round and there are a lot more low lying clouds around of which some directly float past us. =) To bad there were too many clouds which block the sunrise.
Me and Alfred before sunrise. Cold....
Different views from the top of Gunung Datuk as the sun rises
The shaky ladder climb to the top most point of the summit. Not for the faint hearted.
The trek down was very light hearted as the weather was even better then the day before. Most of us were tired but the experience of the long cold night bonded much of us together. I will be looking forward to my next Datuk on the 27th. Hope it will be another different experince. (3 times up Datuk within 1 month haha no wonder they are calling me Datuk king already)
Ready to go descend. Some locals sharing campsite with us in the back drop.
Down and down and down we go~
NUS Rovers: Gunung Datuk Dec '07
Rovers 28th haha
SJ blogged at 21:52 0 comments
