Gunung Datuk - Run 2 (Y2014 Intro Trek)

BASIC INFORMATION

Trek: Y2014 Intro Trek Run 2

Date: August 2014

Location: Gunung Datuk, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

Elevation: 884m

Duration: 1D

BRIEF ITINERARY

Day 1

Transport to base of Gunung Datuk

Day Trek up Gunung Datuk

Day 2

Transport back to SG

After an exciting week of school, it was finally time for intro trek run 2! Despite having organised and gone for several treks myself, this was by far my most nervous trek ever!

Because:

1) There were so many participants (31!! but became 29 because 2 couldn’t make it) 2) There were freshies! Gotta make a make a good impression right! 3) All the problems run 1 went through!! (fallen tree, unexpected dirty water, ants infested camp site etc etc!) Gosh! With all the feedback provided from run 1 (all thanks to the awesome and powerful OIC Leah!), we tried to mitigate as many problems as possible for run 2.

At around 0000 we all gathered around the SMUX room to prepare for departure.

Chitchat chitchat

Clinton leaving up to his name of slut (1 year anniversary of the birth of slut)

Hahaha, jkjk, thanks for coming clinton! haha!

Everyone was chilling around, making final pack-ups and finally it was time to go (around 1.30am!)

So many people!!

We went on our long journey of around 5hours to Datuk. Stopped-over at the customs and bought LOTS of water due to the feedback from run 1!

After 5-6hours of pretty good sleep, we arrived at the base of datuk! To my dismay, there were SOO MANY people there! Everyone just prepared themselves for the climb as I went to settle the administrative stuff with the ranger. BUT TO MY HORROR: THE RANGER ONLY SPOKE MALAY! Holy… Luckily, dessy came to my rescue!! Forever in your debt dessy!! Hahaha!

Afraid that there may not be enough space at night due to large number of people we saw, I decided to set up our tents at the base first (Kiasu spirit!) and dump all our non-essentials there. One of the tents we set up still had all the ants from run 1!!! And some weren’t even dead. Woah…

Group picture at the base before we set off on our journey! (around 9am)

We started off on our trek. It was pretty manageable. As we were walking along, I kept looking out for the fallen tree run 1 saw and hoping that maybe, just maybe, it got shifted out. No such luck! Haha! Around 30minutes into the trek, we were blocked by the huge tree that fell! Then, I understood what Leah meant by it being so huge that they thought it was a bush and that they went the wrong way! It really blocked the path! Luckily, within 1 week since run 1, the path around it was a lot clearer and with the help of Weibin who also went for run 1, we managed to get around it pretty smoothly.

On our way up!

After a while more, we saw the fallen hut, took a short rest and continued. With the large group of people, the front had to move pretty fast to make sure we didn’t lag back. It was surprisingly more tiring that I thought it would be (though my freshies shujun, guohao and max, looked pretty unfazed. Too easy too easy for them). On our way up, we were greeted by so many fellow trekkers! Trekkers are such friendly people

Unexpectedly, we actually reached the peak (before the boulders) pretty quickly! We took around 2hrs 20mins while the last group reached around 15mins later. (maybe except yiting hahahahah!!! but good job!!! :DDD)

Good job yiting!! hahaha! Applaud!! Applaud!!!

Due to the large group of people we had and the large number of other trekkers who were around, we couldn’t go up as a group Hence we went up group by group!

Getting bbq-ed under the sun while waiting to go the peak.

The view from the peak was really worth the climb. With the luxury of time, we spent almost 1.5hours at the peak just taking pictures!

My too zai group

Guohao, Shujun and Max giving a cool shot. (they all wore the same shirt without telling each other!! hahaha!

Our attempt at being cool too! (different trek shirts!)

Zifeng’s group

Leon’s Group!

Ben’s Group!

TM sexy legs’ group

Exco Shot! hoho!

Smux camp orgcomm who came to support! Love u guys! :DD

People who were out to give me a heart attack! RARRRR!!

After almost 1.5 hours of phototaking, we finally made our way down. Going down the ladders was alot scarier than going up! Took pretty long coming down but we had support from one another

After that, we descending pretty quickly to the base. My group even saw a mini snake! o.O

Fastest group to the base!

Awesome TM and weibin buying us 100plus for completing the trek!

With this, everyone was down and we completed the trek!! Good job guys!

We finished at around 3+ near 4. Pretty early. Some of us went to sit at the coffee shop and drank more 100plus, ate chendol, stone. Weibin found a water pipe behind that allowed us to bathe! Hoho! The water pressure was sooooo strong but soooo good!

Then it was time for field cooking! Due to the rain, we were forced to split up into groups to find shelter and cook. My group had the most awesome food of course! Because weibin was here! Woohoooo!! Mapo doufu, chilli spinach, bakut teh, veg with mushroom etc etc! So much awesome food! Totally went into a food coma after that, Avalon was out of the question. :3

The night went pass with groups playing games, some sleeping, htht etc etc. The stars were beautiful too!

We woke up early next day, packed up and left the base at around 7.30am. We had a stop-over for lunch and drove back to Singapore. My van had a flat tire along the way back, and we were stoning by the highway for a while. Field cooking by the road sounded pretty tempting. Hohoho. But the tire got fixed before we did anything hahaha!

We reached back to SMU at around noon and said our goodbyes! I could finally let out a breath of relief as everyone reached back to Singapore safety! Woo hoo! For me, this was kinda a significant moment, knowing that my journey in trekking reach a full circle! It was around 1 year since I first joined the trekking team, as is the same for many like leah, clinton, leon, mooris, jingying and benlim (hope I didn’t miss out anyone)!

With this, we conclude the Intro Treks of 2014!!