Of North Borneo Birds and others: Gunung Lucia of Tawau Hills Park, Part 1

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Gunung Lucia of Tawau Hills Park, Part 1

Gunung Lucia, at 1,201 m above sea level, is one of the several landmarks within Tawau Hills Park. It is 13.25 km of uphill jungle trekking from Park Headquarters, Lucia Camp is at 10.55 km for you to rest for the night as it might be too tiring for ordinary folks like me to finish the trip in a day.

Gunung Madgelena is slightly less than 4 km further away and about 100 m higher up.

Members of the public are only allowed access to these two mountains, they share the same trail for most of the journey, visitors to both mountains use the same Lucia Camp for accommodation.

With their high altitudes, they are two of the few accessible, albeit tough to go, places in east coast of Sabah to see some montane and sub-montane birds.

Here are some images of the journey. Birds will come in part 2.

At Park HQ before the hike.Compare the persons in this to the last photo when we are at the summit, here we are fully charged while in the last photo we are all spent.

Direction Sign at 1.7 km indicating that there is 10.7 km to go.

Muddy and slippery climb right after 2 km.

Location map at the edge of Kerangas forest.

View of Kerangas forest.

Another view of Kerangas forest.

Resting Hut at 6 km, located inside the Kerangas Forest.

This is the second resting hut, it is at 8 km.

Typical look of the trail.

Lucia Camp, we stayed here for 2 nights, it has piped spring water but no electricity, it has beds for sleeping and utensils for cooking. Without a trace of light, the starscape here is nothing short of spectacular.

Directional sign after another rest hut at 12 km, here the trail splits into two, the one going to the left leads to Gunung Magdelena. Of course, we took the shorter one.