Borneo Jungle Expedition

[Moiser]

I recently completed a two week expedition through the jungle of Borneo. It was pretty intense, although this wasn't branded as a "survival course" like the expedition in Guyana last December, I still learnt a lot.

This is the first time I have used all my own equipment in an environment like this, I had to buy a lot of kit, filling in the blanks for survival kit that is usually supplied. I bought a new bag, which I am totally in love with, it's made a company called Hill People Gear, you should check out their stuff if you have an interest in the outdoors.

The bulk of the trip made up of the group navigating through the jungle before making camp for the evening. The jungle is a tough environment to work in, I was only carrying about 45lbs of kit plus anything up to 200 fl oz of water and three days of rations and the going was tough. Sweating constantly due to the heat, which wouldn't evaporate due to the high humidity, we would use streams and rivers to regulate our body temperature. Physically, I didn't struggle as much as some of the other guys, I put this down to the effort I've been putting in at the gym during my time at work.

Having a simple daily routine and a meticulous admin routine was essential from the get go. We were very close to twelve hours of daylight followed by twelve hours of darkness and you wouldn't want to find yourself unwashed, without a camp when daylight started to die. We'd usually rig our hammocks, then head down to a river to wash before eating and settling in for night.

Two of the nine participants on the course ended up having to call quits about halfway through the expedition, an accumulation of the pace and the environment meant they ended up getting sick and unable to properly recover.

I was surprised at how little fauna I saw during the course of the expedition, but I imagine eleven guys stomping through the jungle would send most of the interesting stuff in the opposite direction. I saw plenty of leeches, mosquitoes, wasps and ants and termites. We ended the expedition with a 60m abseil down a waterfall, which was a great end to a couple of weeks of hard work.

I feel like I learned quite a lot during this trip, my general bush craft skills have definitely improved along with my navigation skills. The next step was going to be a two week expedition in the Congo with a small group of friends and local guide. Sadly this has been put on hold for an unknown period of time. I have a couple of similar trips lined up in early 2016, will have to see how that pans out.

[Maestro]

This sounds amazing. One of my bucket list items is to hike the PCT but finding six months to do it would be hard. I'm trying to find something short term here like this. Really want to learn survival more first though. Also a great skill to have for taking care of yourself and loved ones in the event of an emergency.