The Mid Hill Footpath

With the aid of the mighty chainsaw, our morning's work in cutting this extremely hard fallen log of the belian tree was carried out doubly fast. Below is the view of the footpath from the east and Ati is somewhere in the middle of the footpath. There are at least 50 species of trees within this small vegetation island. I have not yet inventoried the trees. My knowledge of the trees of Sarawak is limited. I think when I am free in future I will seek the assistance of my class mate who worked with the Forestry Department till retirement to name the species found here.

Anyway, the species that stood in our way in the picture above is the familiar belian species ( Eusideroxylon melagangai). Here in Sarawak and just as well in Brunei, we use belian timber to build our traditional houses because it its the hardest tree available in Borneo Island, well you can say that it is equivalent to the teak tree of Thaliand. In Bintulu's kampungs today you can still see the houses built totally of belian from posts to shingles intact even after 80 years ago. Of course the belian posts can last a lifetime even when submerged in water. Life time means , yes a hundred years. Belian timber never rot .

The above picture is taken from the proposed top footpath.The' sassy pink' footpath can be slightly seen from the picture i.e. the the lower section of the hill.

And finally , the footpath is more or less delineated and cleared. I think planting can proceed tomorrow. Not bad for a good morning's workout.

View of the footpath from the west. Total man hours spent = 10 man hours, Ati and me included.