This is one of the luckiest Saturday for me. Three Rafflesia blossoms at the same time! Last week, I had visited the same sites with Encik Shukri of the Raub Forestry Department but they were not scheduled to bloom just yet. They were supposed to bloom around 3-4 days' time and the flowers would usually last around 3-4 days' time too. As it was a Saturday, it meant that the flowers would bloom on Tuesday-Wednesday and would have been at its final glory around Saturday. Perfect...appointment made, I waited impatiently for the coming Saturday.
That day, my friends from Kuala Lumpur joined me for the adventure and we actually started quite late in the morning because of some pit-stops along the way from Raub. Unfortunately, Encik Shukri was not at the site because of some unforeseen reasons but luckily for us, his assistant was there to greet us. We strolled slowly up the hill trail as we had children with us. After some very sweat-inducing tracking, we finally arrived at the entrance into the site (about 1 km walk uphill). Another 20 minutes from there, we could finally see the huge bloom of the Rafflesia from quite a distance through the dark forest. My friend Noh and I scurried down the slope and across a small stream in excitement to catch the first glimpse of the magnificent bloom, totally forgetting our guests behind us tarrying with their children!
After some hurriedly snapped photos, we regained our composure and attended to the others...one advice to all others - never bring children to this site as it is not an easy trail and children could become very uncomfortable in the humid and dark forest. Secondly, be extremely careful not to step on the small developing buds as well as using roots of the forest vines to stabilize your steps. These might be the hosts for the rafflesia and damaging these vines (the lianas) would mean damaging the rafflesias as well. Lastly, please inform and get permission from the Raub Forestry Department before embarking on your adventure as it would greatly help to conserve the integrity of the sites for future researches.
After quite a few minutes at this site, and that everyone had had their share of photo opportunity, it was time to move to the next site. However, the children were no longer in any condition to further walk in the dark forest terrain and so they left with the guide to the outside trail first. I continued tracking with my friend Noh to Site C. Having snaked for another few minutes through an extremely confusing trail, we finally found the third bloom. It was slightly smaller in size (about 40 cm in diameter) and was also at the final stage of its glory. However, this one did not have rotting edges but were more orange in colour. We called it quit after having snapped a few photos and we hurried out of the dark and humid forest to rejoin the others...
That day, my friends from Kuala Lumpur joined me for the adventure and we actually started quite late in the morning because of some pit-stops along the way from Raub. Unfortunately, Encik Shukri was not at the site because of some unforeseen reasons but luckily for us, his assistant was there to greet us. We strolled slowly up the hill trail as we had children with us. After some very sweat-inducing tracking, we finally arrived at the entrance into the site (about 1 km walk uphill). Another 20 minutes from there, we could finally see the huge bloom of the Rafflesia from quite a distance through the dark forest. My friend Noh and I scurried down the slope and across a small stream in excitement to catch the first glimpse of the magnificent bloom, totally forgetting our guests behind us tarrying with their children!
After some hurriedly snapped photos, we regained our composure and attended to the others...one advice to all others - never bring children to this site as it is not an easy trail and children could become very uncomfortable in the humid and dark forest. Secondly, be extremely careful not to step on the small developing buds as well as using roots of the forest vines to stabilize your steps. These might be the hosts for the rafflesia and damaging these vines (the lianas) would mean damaging the rafflesias as well. Lastly, please inform and get permission from the Raub Forestry Department before embarking on your adventure as it would greatly help to conserve the integrity of the sites for future researches.
After quite a few minutes at this site, and that everyone had had their share of photo opportunity, it was time to move to the next site. However, the children were no longer in any condition to further walk in the dark forest terrain and so they left with the guide to the outside trail first. I continued tracking with my friend Noh to Site C. Having snaked for another few minutes through an extremely confusing trail, we finally found the third bloom. It was slightly smaller in size (about 40 cm in diameter) and was also at the final stage of its glory. However, this one did not have rotting edges but were more orange in colour. We called it quit after having snapped a few photos and we hurried out of the dark and humid forest to rejoin the others...
Take nothing but photos.
Leave nothing but your footprints.
(and in the case of Rafflesia, be careful where you put your footprint!)
Leave nothing but your footprints.
(and in the case of Rafflesia, be careful where you put your footprint!)
Observe the huge diameter of the Rafflesia cantleyi... 
A close-up of the bloom.
The same bloom, accompanied by a football sized bud 
A decaying giant
At the third site...
The single bloom of rafflessia cantleyi at Site C
No comments:
Post a Comment