Wandering Scotsman

There’s been loads of articles published, largely due to our ever efficient PRO Kate. This article in The Star is about the gravity water feed system in Kampong Linapasan I was on for 10 days at the start of the month. There’s another article about the Opening Ceremony in The Star with more general coverage of Raleigh. I’m trying to work out if the picture online is mine or not, but it’s probably just that the photographer was crouching next to me.

I’ve decided I’m slowly starting to show signs of being a ‘traveller’ although I’m nowhere near being a real one (yet?). The following are only the first signs :

• I cringe when the shop bill gets close to 30 RM (under a fiver)
• I am wearing a friendship band (rapidly pleated from camping twine!) on my wrist given by one participant at Danum Valley, and I have another one in my pocket, but I haven’t got round to burning the ends of the cord yet.
• I leave the town centre of KK and go back to fieldbase as I’ll only spend money on things I don’t need.
• I’ve only got a couple of travel dates planned (although I do have flights)

Over the next few days I’ll post a no-holds barred account of what it’s like to be a Raleigh International Expedition Photographer (come Project Manager, come Admin person, come Logistics person, come Medic etc etc – you don’t think you apply for one role and stick to that role do you? That’s half the fun!). It’ll sound manic (it is) but it’s all great fun, and highly recommended.

Was just killing time browsing around about photography when I stumbled upon this article about an IPTC image tags mishap by Lothian and Borders police during the G8 summit – a word of caution for learning photographers in there!!

I also discovered that Olympus are about to launch a 10MP consumer camera featuring an image stabalisation feature for 330 UKP in October! Bummer because I bought a Canon A540 before I headed on my travels and it’s shit – usual story, in a rush, needed a half decent manual compact camera that I could get a waterproof casing for. The flash takes bloody ages to, well…flash in that time of need. To add insult to injury, the little box of metal is 100 UKP cheaper over here. Actually it’s not too bad a camera, but that feature is very annoying. Maybe I’m just doing something wrong. Or wishing I had just said ‘bugger the manual features’ and bought one of the dinky little IXUS’s.

Well I’ve finally uploaded some pictures for you to view at the Wandering Scotsman Gallery (I’ll fix that URL name soonish!). All these pictures are ones of me, so a bit self indulgent, but it will give you a taster of what I’ve been up to, and what kind of environment I’ve been living in. Compared to all my photos, there’s not many of me as a percentage, but that’s the downside of being a photographer I guess. Every moment lost you’re ‘blamed’ for but sometimes I just can’t be bothered carrying the camera (and trust me, that’s not often), and most pictures of me I had to ask for.

To the Raleigh staff and participants…for the above reasons I’ll apologise if I’ve nicked your pictures for this site, let me know and I’ll remove them – a bit hypocritical considering what I say when people say they want to upload a shitload of mine…but hey you’ve got to try and protect a growing ‘portfolio’ somehow!

Anyway, at the link above, you’ll find pictures from staff training, my birthday paddy field planting, my nominated jungle valentine on the 14th, trekking, Mt Kinabalu, a couple of the Danum Valley camp, a few from the photoshoot for the Sabah Magazine, the staff group, me trying to dry off as we burned rubbish on an open fire, a bit of my ‘trekker’s beard’, my various baths and showers and Kampong Linapasan, Imbak Canyon and Danum Valley and a few more. There’s no description which is why I’m waffling.

Enjoy!

Pretty uninteresting news today. I’ve been sifting thousands of photos of mine (and others) to select them for the 06E Expedition Magazine. Eventually they were ready and I popped into the city centre to pop it into the printers. It all went super smoothly, but I guess we’ll find out on Thursday or Friday when we head back to see the proofs!

I hooked my laptop up to the net in the coffee bean, and it’s been 71 days since the poor thing has had an internet connection! I did try and get some photos online, but gave up and got a taxi back home.

Last night several staff went to a slap up meal and night of celebration. We were in the Shangri-La’s Cafe TATU for a slap up buffet meal, and that’s certainly a way to describe it. I’ve never seen such a great selection of food in buffet eat as much as you like stye before. From sushi to curry to pasta to seafood, it was all there, including a counter where you selected your food, and stir fry ingredients, and had it cooked in front of you. As we were there early and had the local connections for the compulsory discount, the meal only cost 8.50 UKP, and another 4 UKP for drinks. I even managed to have a lovely pudding of mixed ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce and ‘hundreds and thousands’, with jelly, sweeties, and a bit of pineapple to make me feel better. The drinks still flowed afterwards, despite a plate of seafood, followed by a plate of stir fry, and a curry before the dessert. Despite seeing the first cheese board since I arrived, I couldn’t manage to force it down me, or the bread and butter pudding. The drinks afterwards cost more than the meal and drinks at Cafe TUTU!

With this, and eating a full buffet Sunday roast, I’ve been eating a bit too well since arriving back at field base…but it’s not a normal week as there are a few celebrations going on.

I’ve also got my deep dive and navigation dive booked for Friday to complete my Advanced PADI in preparation for booking the Sipadan trip tomorrow. I’m spending way too much – get me back to the jungle!

The rest of the week will be more pictures, and more pictures, and I’ll be starting to research my October travel plans – maybe consisting of Myanmar, Cambodia, and whatever else takes my fancy (or not). I’ll be hooking up with my mate Tracy I met in Whistler many moons ago. At this rate, we’ve got so much in mind, but both so in a ‘let’s not plan too much’ mode, it could be quite interesting.

Like a typical day on projects, I think I’ve got no news, but I guess I’m doing ok…..

I’ve not had much of a chance to put my own pictures online so here’s other staff member’s pictures. If you are back from expedition and reading this, please let me know your links and I’ll add them to here for others to see.

http://www.james-sheader.fotopic.net
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettledaws/?saved=1 (the first four pics at the moment are from Linapasan, the gravity water feed project I was at for 10 days)

Well it’s the first normal day in field base, and all the usual office traits are back… I’ve become addicted to Nescafe 3-in-1 after being introduced to the little sachets of coffee,’milk’ and sugar since being in Linapasan (thanks Emma!) – far more convenient when living in the wilds, where you can’t get milk anyway. I’ve also started to love all the ‘fruit tree’ branded cans of juice where you get lychee, mango or blackcurrant with aloe vera bits in the can. mmmmm

When at a barbeque in Inobong with the trekkers the other night we were blindfolded and had to try loads of food and a juice…it tasted quite nice, but I’ve yet to find Kick-a-poo Joy Juice freely available, and get addicted to buying Joy Juice…

Back to work – thousands of pics to browse through…

I’m now back at field base – only been back for a day but it feels like an age.

I am pleased to say I’ve had a whole host of experiences in the last few weeks though which I’ll just skim over at the moment. I’ve been to several project sites throughout the state of Sabah, and seen a whole load of stuff that the average tourist wouldn’t see. There are a few opportunities I’ve missed, but nothing I’m regretting too much in the time available.

Within the last few days I’ve tubed down the river at Danum Valley in the middle of the rainforest. I joined the Raleigh camp at their suspension bridge work site (the Rhino bridge if anyone makes it there) and looked down over the river every day which became my relaxation spot, bath and shower for the last 5 days. The river was really low while I was there which meant it was safe to swim across. The first day I explored an area next to the work site we named the Rhino pools and was treated to superb water pools bathed in shafts of sunlight creeping through the rainforest canopy. The following day I triple bagged my camera in drysacks and waded it across for some pictures. After returning to camp one day, I was sitting on the beach and watched long tailed Macaque monkeys jumping around the fruit trees. When everyone else left the riverside beach area, three of them became a bit more inquisitive and walked around the rocks on the other side of the river from me.

The following day, I walked down to the field centre when all of a sudden the tree in front of me sprung alive as I disturbed an orang-utan. Unfortunately I didn’t see it full on, but saw it’s orange fur jumping around until he was a few trees away from me. There were a few pygmy squirrels kicking around the camp area, and we had a resident lizard living on the tree by the dry food slops area.

Unfortunately I headed away from the camp in a bit of a hurry the night before my departure to escort an ill participant to the comfort of the field centre. We had to move down just as darkness approached and were taken down by the rangers who camped close by us. The up side of this was we were taken by boat, in darkness, guided by the spotlight of the rangers. This was an amazing journey, and something you’d never get access to normally. All you could see was the rangers spotting the banks and the currents by spotlight, and headtorch when they cut the engine on the lower parts of the river. When you looked up, the only thing visible was the outline of the trees and the stars.

At the start of the trip the Permanent Secretary of Youth and Sport visited the project site at Danum, treated us to lunch and dinner, and planted a tree. At night we went to a talk from a Danum ranger then in true Asian style we sang karaoke with the Ministry staff until late o’clock…but remember 11pm is late o’clock in Raleigh time, never mind when we were rising at 4am… The Ministry’s hospitality was immense and the whole team were taken to a viewing platform for the sunrise over the surreal misty Danum Valley, then treated to a slap up breakfast on the platform

Today I was looking through the photos from the last few weeks, but was subjected to the artificial stresses created at field base….although I’m loving the stuff I have to do over the next few weeks the simple life of a project site becomes all the more appealing.

I’ll write more and put some pictures up soon, but it’s likely to be later on next week as the madness of changeover has came round again, so tomorrow it’s back to Borneo Paradise for a mad few days with some new participants, and many more knackered ones finding out which project sites they are heading to for their final few weeks….