Sunday 27 July Returning to the sea

baby macaque

foraging macaque

yet another macaque

We left the anchorage at Sukau to begin our journey back to the sea. Navigating in the river one has to steer wide on the bends to avoid the shallower water on the inside. When the river is wide we run in the middle.

Kudai village

watching from the bow

On our leisurely drift back to the sea I was sitting in my deck chair on the foredeck, binoculars on my lap, camera to hand. We saw the now common egrets and herons, eagles and kites, a noisy flock (?) of red billed hornbills flew over, glimpses of proboscis and macaques and then I heard it. The distinct crash of an elephant pushing over a tree somewhere ahead and to our right. I jumped up, pointed the direction excitedly to David and we moved closer to the bank. Through a clearing in the trees we saw a female elephant and her baby and another juvenile. The native pygmy elephants of Borneo are known as pygmy for a mere 1” less than their cousins the Asian elephant. We think their natural habitat is shrinking as more forest is torn up for palm oil plantations and the elephants are kept to the thin strip of national park along the Kinabatangan so we were most fortunate to see them.

pygmy elephants

We stopped and let down the anchor as quietly as possible, not quite enough as the herd heard, gave an almighty trumpet and moved away from the perceived threat of five sail boats. Two boats ahead and two behind saw us stop and came for a see too - if only the elephants had realised all we wanted was to watch quietly and take photos.

It was late in the afternoon so we spent the night and following morning waiting for a reappearance for which we were rewarded with a second glimpse just before lunch.