Promise Delivered

Good day everyone. I recently went on a 2d2n field trip (19th-21st March 2010) to Kuala Selangor-Gombak as a demonstrator for the second year unit, Ecology. Why do I sound so formal? Anyway, let my pictures speak the thousands of words they yearn to convey to you. Beginning with..

.. our dear adventurer, Tajang, who was overwhelmed with 'explorer' vibes when united with his new Olympus Pen Ep-1 and camera bag.

After packing in the rain into the van and bus, it was the dawn of a worried blonde woman. Two students were LATE by about half an hour, citing rain + traffic jam as reasons (it began raining only at 4.30; the time they were told the bus was scheduled to leave).

The Monash van that we 'demonstrators' were to travel in. The very same one Monash used to pick students up in the airport during my previous job in the "Prospective Students Office" where I had frequent airport pickup jobs (The same one I was shown to be too short to drive).

Yup

Looking on, expecting a mess.

And then off we went, 44 students, 6 demonstrators, 1 lecturer (and a bus driver) to Malaysian Nature Society's Nature Park in Kuala Selangor, which has thriving populations of macaques and surprisingly, silverleaf monkeys that are accustomed to human presence. Here we go..

Boring ol' beetle. Half-heartedly taken shot.

The first interesting event in Nature Park: A scorpion in the student hostels. From butt (the curled end of un-stretched tail to pincers) to pincers, this thing was approximately 12-15 cm long.

My only presentable shot.
Very little shooting (camera) opportunities for me since the 'big boys' with their big toys were hogging it to themselves, as you can see.

Gleeful flashing duo.

Flashy wet dream

The next morning
Bunch of half-awake students having their briefing from Dr. Cathy, all holding their equipment (that we demos carried and arranged for them student groups). Pails, quadrats, pictures and keys to identify trees, plants, crabs and more.
Yeah, sure, keep on pretending like you're listening.

Disgruntled student... Nah, that's just a silverleaf monkey Shen the fellow demo.

And we're off to the Kuala Selangor Mangroves. It's a tough hike when you're in a group of 50, because the path gets gummier and muddier when more people tread pass it. 2 students failed to finish the trail - boots stuck repeatedly in the clayey mud, stamina drained, repeated falls; sucks to be them. Also sucks to be me since I'm the demo and I'm there to help them (dig their boots out of the mud, haha). The trick to get around in the mangrove's to not let your whole foot sink in the mud (keep your heel up, walk on the ball/front of your foot) and don't stay at one spot for too long. Picture time!

Right before entering the mangrove, there's a pond beside the trail. Guess what we saw? Michelle!
Off to the shore for some good ol' sunshine.
And here's another one. I saw about 7-8 of them at least. They're about 1.2-1.5m long.
Sunrays. Yup, that's the pond with the monitor lizzards =)

Epic?

Mangrove floor.. and mud. See anything there? He's there.. spot him...
Right in the MIDDLE of the last picture. Crabbie!
Shen and I's chillax place as a briefing by the sea was given.
Yum? My legs. Thank my Bowling brand shoes, RM10 a pair. haha

Akibat nak main kamera dalam hutan paya. Unavoidable. Less you wanna be the slowest pussy among the 50 people as a demonstrator... nahhh, gotta help others too.

Like what you see?
Pretty.
Who's that?
..it's a pair of mudskipper eyes.. Really big one (trust me, I mean big when I said big). These guys are about 30 cm long. More later.
His smaller, average-sized friends.

Finally got one out of water. This picture was taken with 20x zoom. From approximately 10-15m? Yeap, one of them big mudskippers, ~30cm ones like the one peeking out of water earlier.
After zooming in the picture. Fatty.

-To be continued-