With a few days left in Sabah, we decided to take some time to just relax and enjoy the sand and sea. We did not want to go far, as it was rainy season, and sea conditions could become treacherous with ferry and transfer cancellations and we did not want to be stuck on an island (as nice as it may be) and miss our flight to KL. Due to it's proximity to KK, we chose Manukan Island, and it turned out to be a great place to relax and reflect on our amazing Borneo adventure.
Manukan Island (Pulau Manukan) is the second largest island in the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, Malaysia's first marine national park accessible by boat.
Manukan is the most popular island with Kota Kinabalu residents. Manukan has some good stretches of beaches on the southern coastline. The best beach is on the eastern tip of the island. Offshore of Manukan are coral reefs, which is ideal for snorkelling, diving and swimming.
We were lucky enough to enjoy calm waters on our first day there and explored the coral reefs off shore, snorkelling with the kids. The following two days were also beautiful, but brought a couple short showers and a little choppier seas, so the visibility was not the best for snorkelling, but it was still great for enjoying the beach and swimming in both the sea and the pool.
Songbirds everywhere.
According to the island naturalist, this is some sort of wild chicken. It was digging in the woods behind our cottage every day.
The hillside cottages - right by the quietest beach on the island.
Our 2 bedroom beachfront cottage. Home away from home.
Huge hermit crab that Eva spotted on our sunset walk. The guides had told us not to step on any piles of leaves, as there may be venemous snakes and spiders, and scorpions...kind of freaked us out, and the kids were careful about where they were stepping, until we got to a section of the trail that was totally covered in leaves and we just had to go! We were also told that monitor lizards frequent the trail, but they are harmless...but still, they can be huge and pretty intimidating!!!
We did the walk to sunset point two times. Once just for the sunset and the second time with the naturalist, learning about the jungle on the island and walking through the thick brush.
At sunset point...feeling like Robinson Crusoe
We were told that this is a very special mangrove tree. It is huge, and rarely do they survive to grow this large. You can see the small one in the left corner of the picture.
Watching the sunset.
Early morning walk on the beach...strolling with the monitor lizards...
Stepan and I went out in the morning to see if we could catch a glimpse of the resident sharks that would swim by the jetty in the morning (according to staff, they frequently saw them), although we didn't see any sharks, we saw some other fish.
We soon came to understand why the monitor lizards liked hanging out around the resort. The staff would throw them scraps at lunch time, so every day they came back for more...often waiting around for lunch to start...
Coconut fun at the pool. The staff harvested the coconuts on the palms around the pool, and shared them with the kids.
Coconut heaven.
Our second night out to sunset point we took the jungle trekking route with a guide.
Big termite mound.
Dinner, after the sunset. The dining room was beautiful, and we had it almost to ourselves. It is a fairly small resort, so after the day trippers left, we felt like we were truly on a private island. I actually think that we were outnumbered by staff (and all the staff were incredible - helpful and welcoming - anticipating our needs.)
Evening walk.
On the transfer back to Kota Kinabalu, we got some great views of the city.
Jessleton Point
Jessleton Point - Just before leaving for the airport.
Great view of Mount Kinabalu from the airport departure hall. The airport is conveniently right in the city, so it's not necessary to travel far at all, however, the traffice in KK can be pretty crazy at rush hour, so we made sure that we were at the airport with time to spare. Now off to Kuala Lumpur!
