6 AUGUST 2006

Activity: Free and easy hike at Mt. Datuk
Height: 843 metres
Location: Rembau, Negeri Sembilan
Who: Lim Fang Hau, Lee Yin Fook and Ng Ping Loong

My initial plan was to go to Nuang with Fook. Since Loong wanted to go to Datuk and Fook and Loong have not been to Datuk, I decided to change the plan to Datuk instead of Nuang. The hike started at time 0942 by crossing the first river. Our first target was the 1st shelter. Since I led the way, I decided to set a faster pace for them to follow. Both of them could follow my pace without much problem. It took us 38 minutes to reach the first shelter. At the first shelter, I decided to give them 5 minutes break before asking them to continue. The trail to the first shelter was dry.

Our next target was the campsite. We took 43 minutes to reach the campsite. In total we took 1 hr 26 min to reach the campsite. The time taken was less than our travelling time from Kuala Lumpur. At the campsite, there were huge rocks leading up to Mt. Datuk. We climbed up the rocks and I reach the first part of the rocks. There was a ladder in front. I did not climb the ladder when I was here on 23/7/2006 with Kam Meng. This time I decided not to climb the ladder and I told them to be extra careful when climbing up the ladder. After watching Fook and Loong going up the ladder, I had my lunch.

It was almost 12 noon and I was wondering what had happen to Loong and Fook. Why were they still not coming down as I was watching other group of climbers coming down. This time I decided to go up to see what had happened to them. I had to climb the rocks and the ladder myself slowly as I had height phobia. Finally, I managed to go up. There was another ladder to climb. This was much easier than the first one. When reaching the summit, the path to go through in between the rocks i.e. after the ladder was quite narrow. Finally, I managed to meet Fook and Loong on the summit. They were actually enjoying the view from the summit with other group of climbers. The view at the summit was quite nice but it was hazy that day.

At time 1316 we departed from the campsite to the office. This time instead of me leading the way, I decided to be the anchorman i.e. to stay behind to watch their footsteps. To my surprise, Fook’s pace when going down was quite fast as a regular hiker. I one point I had to run with extra caution as not to slip, in order to follow Fook. We reached the office at time 1419. It took us 1 hr 3 min to reach the office from the campsite.

I was on the summit on 1/11/2005 but did not manage to snap photos. One week before Penang, I was with Kam Meng but I did not climb the rocks to the summit. At last, on 6/8/2006, I managed to snap some photos including myself from the summit.