Gunung Kinabalu Park is a world renowned Asian Natural Reservation and refers to an area mostly formed by Mount Kinabalu, the highest point on the island of Borneo, north of Java, Indonesia and the surrounding valleys and rainforests. In 2000 UNESCO accorded Mount Kinabalu National Park a World Heritage Site listing due to its amazing beauty, scenic views and super vast biodiversity.

How Do I Get Damp and Muddy?

Borneo is mainly mountainous, with large areas of rain forest, one of the oldest in the word besides the ancient rainforests from Australia and the Amazon rainforest.

The weather of Borneo is a little more peculiar than most tourists are used to. During the day it can get extremely hot, rather sunny with warm bright late afternoons. But during the night, things radically change with heavy mists and temperatures down to 12°C.

The best time of year to visit Borneo is in January, before the festival of the Chinese New Year.

Between October and March the island gets hit by monsoons and the last quarter of the year is rainy, including between January to February. If you’re not squeamish and can deal with some humidity and mud, this is the best time when you should visit Gunung Kinabalu Park, since now you can spot wildlife at its best.

Exactly How Tired Besides Wet?

Gunung Kinabalu Park within its 75, 400 hectares has everything for everybody. For average climbers, it offers Low’s Peak that can be climbed quite easily by anyone in a decent physical condition. For the most experienced ones, the park has other peaks, which require mountaineering equipment on the main route or the secondary ones. And of course there are places along the massif, where serious rock climbing skills are required.

And Finally Happy, Why?

If you are used to hold your breath long enough to get an overexposed picture of a stupendous butterfly, you’ll know. If you have trembled just for once divided between fear of the wild and excitement of seeing and capturing a once in a life time shot of a wild animal, you will definitively know.

Gunung Kinabalu Park gained the reputation to have the most ecologically diverse wild life from all the mountains in Southeast Asia with more allegedly biological treasures still waiting to be discovered.

It is the home of a rich variety of endemics belonging both to flora and fauna. Here dwells one of the world’s largest varietyof wild orchids and the famous Rafflesia flower also called the corpse flower.

There are almost 326 species of birds including the interesting Rhinoceros Hornbill and the thing is that from 29 species of birds unique to Borneo, 17 of them can be found here.
The park also hosts almost 100 mammalian species most of them living in the jungle trees including the orangutan as well as the rare clouded leopard on the ground.

Other species endemic to Gunung Kinabalu Park are the black shrew, the Thomas’ pygmy squirrel as well as many small reptiles, spiders, moths and insects.