"Your thighs look strong. Beefy. You'll be fine"

Beefy.

Reassuring words from my hostel owner this evening as I'm packing my clothes into my day sack ready to climb Mount Kinabalu tomorrow! I am so excited and I just can't hide it so I ate a lot of carbs and called it legit preparation, which definitely negated my breathlessness at the top of the stairs to my dorm.

I was intending to turn up and climb on the day when I originally planned to do Mt Kinabalu, but the late 2015 earthquake meant the mountain had to be closed for 3 months and only reopened a few weeks ago. Because of the damage to the trails, now only 100 people are allowed up each day (previously 200), and people who missed their climb due to the closure have been reallocated dates this month. I didn't want to miss climbing at all as this is one of the absolute highlights of my trip, so I ended up booking through Amazing Borneo Tours to guarantee my climb. I'll review how it went once I've done it!

I love mountain climbing and Borneo is my ultimate adventureland, so the combination is just divine. My Dad also climbed Mt Kinabalu back in the day, so I feel even more excited to be able to bring the same experience into my life and share something so incredible in a now-and-then kind of way.
Hopefully it'll be better for my friends and family to hear about something that I've actually done now, rather than the last year of just committing myself to all these things...!

Having spent the majority of my evening rolling up tech tops and replacement tech tops for when the first 3 will get soaked - we are in tropical rainforest after all - I'm now suited and booted and insanely excited to get my hiking face on, whack out my head torch, and get climbing to cooler and cold climes! I can't wait to see the different ecological levels and stagger to the top (fingerscrossedweatherpleasebegoodpleasepleaseplease). 

YAY BORNEO!