Mount Kinabalu - Starting the ascent

I was woken up by the guesthouse owner. I explained that my bus didn't leave until 7:30 but apparently "it sometimes goes earlier". So I was at the bus station at 7am. After being put on two different buses and sent to ten others I eventually found a bus leaving at 8am. At 8:30 we set off. About two hours later I was dropped in the middle of no where and told to "walk up that road for a while". It's surprising how often this happens. One day I'll find myself lost and sleeping in a ditch but on this occasion I got lucky. Two minutes up the road was the entrance to the national park. After filling in some paperwork, dropping off my bag and taking only the essentials in my day pack I was on my way.

Another sunset

A minibus dropped us at the start of the walk up Mount Kinabalu. There was a small shop and it was 11 o'clock so I asked about food on the way. Nothing until the guesthouse (6 hours away). So I did some quick shopping and ten minutes later I was ready to begin my ascent of a 4,000 meter mountain armed with a packet of biscuits and some two minute noodles.

Sunset

The first day is a 6 km walk up 2,000 metres. That's or 1-3 gradient! And it's all up. There's a 20 metre stretch where it's flat but at no point did it even consider going down. It's supposed to take six hours to get to the guesthouse but I did it in four! What a legend ;-).

I arrived at the guesthouse at 3,272.7 metres high. It's an early start tomorrow for the climb to the top 4,095.2 metres.

The guest house and me

The guest house half way up the mountain