Gunung Arong (Y2011 Intro Trek)

BASIC INFORMATION

Trek: Y2011 Intro Trek

Date: 27 - 28 August 2011

Location: Gunung Arong, Johor, Malaysia

Elevation: 273m

Duration: 1D

BRIEF ITINERARY

Day 1

Transport to Tanjung Resang

Day 2

Day Trek up Gunung Arong

Transport back to SG

Day 1

We met at Kranji MRT in the afternoon due to the Presidential polling day. None of us expected that there was a jam from Kranji MRT to Malaysia Custom. As usual, we bought our lunch at City Square and board the chartered bus to Mersing at 3.30pm. I was worried that we would reach the wrong place because I didn’t know the exact location of Gunung Arong. Instead, I downloaded the video from Malaysiaseasport of how to get there and navigated using the video. I know it sounds silly but it worked!

Nizam is the most considerate bus driver who I‘ve seen in Malaysia. He drove around 60 to 80km/h and he didn’t attempt to overtake any car, not even once! So, we took 4 hours to reach Tanjung Resang. When we got down from the bus, the campsite was astonishingly awesome. The sun was beautiful. The beach was very clean. I could hear the sea waves and the evening sea breeze. We were even more surprised by the size of the campsite. It is comparable to the size of a football field. The facilities are better than expected such as toilets, bathroom, tap, tables, chairs and pavilions. It is the best campsite that I’ve seen so far.

We had a cooking contest call “3 dishes and 1 soup” after we settled down for field cooking. As compared from the last few intro trek, our team has tremendously improve our cooking skills. We had Sambal Kan Kong, Pineapple rice and Fondue, just to name a few. As a curry lover, my favourite was Siew’s curry. Margaret’s ABC soup also tasted like heaven after eating so much oily stuff.

Last thing we had for the first night was “Tonight with Siew” when all the participants introduced themselves and shared the reasons why they joined this trek. Then, the trekkers shared their personal experiences for last few treks. Wallace, the Tahan Knight and also being the Advance team shared his unforgettable experience at lower Pangkin Campsite. He was also complaining about his apple that was eaten up by the rat during the first night of Tahan. Of course, we put him on the limelight for being the birthday boy. We had a chocolate cake from secret recipe for him. Guess what? Wallace had an apple for his birthday present

Day 2

The first thing I asked right after I woke up, “what is the polling result?” Well… let’s put politics aside…

Before we embarked our journey to Gunung Arong, we had a 15 min walk to the starting point with our daypacks. Along the way, it felt like we were at countryside. The happy Sunday walk was quite chill and refreshing to start our day.

After we reached the start point, there were a couple of toilets and a mini waterfall. My team was at the front; Zephan and the two Malay-speaking guides were trekking ahead of me. At the start, it was not easy for beginners as the ground was dry and sandy coupled with a little bit of steepness. So we tended to slide down with every step we took. The steepness was neither gentle nor very steep such that we could only used our leg power to ascend. I started perspiring but still going strong. The speed was steady and almost the same average speed of my Tahan trek. We called the guides to slow down a couple of time.

After trekking for 40min, we could see the sea view. I was telling myself, “Oh no… this kinda look like the summit view. But we still have more than an hour to go!” I called for water break while enjoying the sea view. We had a little photo-taking session. As Zephan and I proceed 5m more, I saw a hut up there and asked the Malay guides whether it is the summit. They denied saying that it’s just a rest point. More groups came up and started laughing that we were so close to the rest point where it has better view.

Bryan, the Caucasian guide confirmed that we had reach summit. They said we trekked at a really good speed. We took quite some time to enjoy the scenery and photo-taking session.

I think we took around 35min to descend by the same track. I saw many fishes in the pond when I was my washing my hand. =) Poor Chula, the cameraman always got called to take photo for others because he was the only one who bought a DSLR. On the way to campsite, the afternoon sun was getting brighter. So, we called the driver to fetch us earlier since the 4hours trek turned out into 1.5hours trek.

While waiting for the bus, we settled down packing our stuff and some of us went to shower (Of course, the shower facilities were so clean!). We had 3 adventurous souls; Zephan, Edgar and Debbie had a FOC board-surfing session with one of our guides, Sha. The sea was quite narrow. Unfortunately, I could not go into the sea due to my toe’s condition. =(

All the participants gave us good feedback despite the easy trek. I feel that this into trek would not be so awesome without this group of people. I would go back to Tanjung Resang for windsurfing during monsoon season too. =)