MAS: Kinabalu Park

Ranau, Malaysia

Kinabalu Park is Malaysia's first national park established in 1964. It's also the country's first area to be designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for its role as one of the most important biological sites across the globe with over 4,500 species of flora and fauna.

After checking-out from Dreamtel Kota Kinabalu, my BFF and I just had to walk a few steps to find a minivan that'd bring us to the mountainous region. We noted from online resources that the fare is MYR 25.00 (~S$7.90) per person, but we were told by the driver to pay MYR 20.00 (~S$6.35) each, while the Canadian guy who came after us paid the usual price. I wonder if that's because we spoke Malay to the driver.

You can find lots of minivans, buses and taxis at Padang Merdeka.

We waited for around 35 minutes for the minivan to be full before leaving Padang Merdeka.

After approximately two hours, we reached the entrance of the national park. As foreigners above 18 years old, each of us had to fork out MYR 15.00 (~S$4.75) as a conservation fee.

The park was gazetted on 16 January 1984, and then designated as UNESCO World Heritage Site on
2 December 2000.

I'm actually wondering if that number means I'm the 1,344,366th visitor? :P

Kinabalu Park covers an area of 754 square kilometres surrounding Mount Kinabalu, which is the highest mountain on the island of Borneo. Given that my mom and dear back home forbade me from climbing up to the summit at 4,095.2 m, as well as the fact that my BFF wasn't up for it, I decided not to scale the mountain.

The Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon will become a biennial event starting from 2017.

We didn't get to go into the souvenir shop as it was closed when we were there.

We walked the ramp up to see the UNESCO World Heritage site monument. We also went into the Kinabalu Natural History Gallery, which I'm going to write about in a separate post.

Don't you love the state flag of Sabah with the silhouette of Mount Kinabalu?

On the first day, we almost couldn't see Mount Kinabalu at all due to the sheer amount of clouds blocking the view.

It wasn't that bad on the second day, so we decided to wait for the strong winds to blow the clouds away. Our patience paid off.

"Cloud, cloud, go away. Come again another day~"

Admiring the view of the majestic mountain~ <3

Thanks to the cooling breeze, it was really nice to walk within the compound. There are quite a number of trails available, one of which will appear in the next post. In the meantime, do enjoy the following photos, most of which showcase the various flora we encountered.

Misty~

That's a banana blossom hanging at the end of a cluster of unripe bananas.

Hi there, beauty~

Such fresh-looking petals!

Did you know that Hugh Low, a British colonial administrator and naturalist, was the first recorded man to reach the peak of Mount Kinabalu? From then on, the highest peak has been known as Low's Peak.