Chillbone, Day 1, Motong Area

So they say nothing is constant except change.. and well, our details got shuffled up for ChillBone.. much to most people's dismay. At that time though, I thought my detail was strong.. cos it had Hichael, Thye Heng, Melvin, me, Luke, Jeremy, Qiyang and Yi Kiat.. but oh well.. regardless of our own strengths, we had to fully assimilate as a group before we could fully maximise each others potential.. sadly.. I don't think we really managed to assimilate.. and slowly our mental and physical capacities withered as the days went on and our stomachs got more and more hungry...

We were dropped at S. Motong area and had to go to Bt. Telugong which was around 797 feet i think.. at that time it didn't really seem very imposing or tough, and Melvin and I discussed that to get the 40 points for ChillBone (ie. full marks), we had to find a check point for every 7 hours... and most probably had to hit Telugong by the first day... How naive we were! Within the first few hours our hopes and morale quickly dipped and by the end of the day we had only travelled 2 miserly map squares upwards... still FAR from Telugong... You see, our original plan was as Cpt Justiin had said, which was to travel along S. Motong then reach S. Temburong and then follow it all the way to the foot of Temburong @ Kg. Parit... we had to do so cos the area direct northwards would ultimately lead to the "Brunei Bermuda Triangle" of Amo area.. which according to our instructors.. was not to place we would like to be in...and judging by how tough navigation had been for Nomad, we placed our trust on their words...

problem is..the river banks of S. Motong were literally impassable with thick bamboo clusters (plus.. I now have a fear of bamboo clusters after Chiyu commented on how a particular type of snake likes to live near bamboo..shudder) and then once we reached the loop of the river... we realised we might have to traipse through cultivated land as well as cross a pretty deep looking river and hence things were not looking good... =( plus Hichael, who had assumed the main navigator role tried to cross a dry river to the other end by crawling up a fallen log and ultimately slipped and fell pretty hard into the mud.. so it really was a pretty terrible start...

so we then decided to just head north and attempt to use the ridgelines to navigate... it was a tough climb and everyone was exhausted, but felt that perhaps this route would finally pay off and allow us to catch up some time... but well, Brunei wasn't going to let up so easily and the routes got more and more obscure and dead falls just kpet appearing.. but still we pushed on.. until we reached an area where we were pretty much confined to a trail due to a continuous row of Iban traps( had fun setting a few off).. then we missed the spur leading further northwards and headed too west along the trail, decided to bash northwards in hope of finding the ridgeline that headed northwards but ended up in a deep ravine... struggled whilst cursing and swearing as we had to climb uphill again until we reached the Iban trails, where we still failed to find the exact spur leading on...

by then most of us were darn discouraged, pissed off and downright worried... cos the area was swiftly getting bathed with the golden lights of the setting sun.. we were pretty screwed.. I den made a decision to just follow the well cleared Iban trail and see where it lead us.. (I was hoping it would lead to a clear river with nice beaches that we could walk on and maybe some settlements..) How naive i was! Somehow the Ibanese just build traps and clear trails that lead to nowhere.. and hence we soon found ourselves in a tiny river blocked by numerous deadfall (shades of ROC here).. I was started to regret my decision but well.. they really wasn't any other way out and hence we bashed via the river route for a while (around 300m) until it got frighteningly dim and we all agreed to head up and harbour.. afterall no one would want to harbour in the river or something.. after climbing for darndedly long again, we surprisingly reached a pretty nice clearing and found that hey! we were on the ridgeline we originally wanted to be on!.. so maybe things weren't so bad after all..

thru the nite got bitten like mad by some black small insects.. couldn't sleep at all... din really do sentry and just tried to toss and turn and pray that my feet would be ok...

frANk