After a night in Ginseng Camp (I will say nothing about the Blue Bucket) we spent the next morning awaiting the arrival of the helicopter. First Cowboy and the Rangers had to clear the small landing patch that had become very overgrown with a tangle of vegetation. Alice was in good shape despite the pain every time she put weight on her foot. We waited impatiently for the helicopter, it had to fly from Kota Kinabalu on the coast, about an hour's flight, then land at the Field Centre for a briefing. At last we heard the sound of the approaching helicopter and saw it hover above the tiny clearing; two or three times the helicopter dipped down and tried to land but could not make it, then rose up again, circled and tried once more. I could tell by the worried look on Alice's face that she was thinking, like me, that the clearing might be too small for the helicopter to land safely. But then on the third or fourth attempt it was down. Cowboy had made an improvised stretcher for Alice but as there was a short rough narrow trail up to the landing patch it would have been hard to carry a stretcher, it was easier for her to ride piggy-back on one of the Rangers.
It had been decided that the helicopter could carry all three of us and our luggage out and take us to KK where Alice could get to a hospital, but after the problem of landing the pilot thought it was too dangerous to take off from such a small space with a heavy load, so he took Alice and Madison back to the Field Centre and then returned for me and the rucksacks.
The Field Centre has a sports field that serves as a landing strip and it was there that that I was joined by the others. Alice lying on a stretcher was lifted aboard and Madison and I squeezed in behind the pilot. The helicopter struggled to take off when we were all in but once it had gained hight we soon left the Field Station behind, and even got a distant glimpse of the Maliau Falls as we approached the crater rim. Getting over the rim proved to be difficult as the weight made it hard to gain altitude. The pilot searched for the lowest part of the rim and then taking the helicopter version of a run and a jump we were over and heading towards KK. The forest spread out beneath us as far as we could see, the whole of the Mailiau conservation area and way over into Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. We were gazing down at the forest below when the door beside Alice's head flew open.Expecting the the stretcher to fly out I was ready to seize Alice by her injured leg, but she calmly shut the door and all was fine again. The carpet of forest gradually thinned and became patterned with the brown threads of logging roads, then the forest below us disappeared completely and was replaced by the ordered lines of the oil palm plantations. But this was not the last of the rainforest as before we could reach KK we had to pass over the Crocker Range National Park. The ridge of high forest covered mountains that runs parallel to the coast from Mount Kinabalu westwards and includes True Madi the second highest mountain in Borneo. Beyond the barrier of the Crocker Range we could see storm clouds building up, held back by the wall of mountains. Our pilot - we later found he was an Italian called Giacommo, known to everyone as Captain Jack. - searched for a safe route through the mountains. Several times he tried to gain the height to cross the ridge but fell back. The helicopter spun round and circled as he searched for a clear gap that did not lead into the gathering storm, then he found one and we were over and weaving our way down a valley below the clouds. The valley led us beyond the untouched forest of the National Park and into a broad cultivated valley. Still flying low it seemed to me that we skimmed over a string of pylons missing the wires by just a few feet, though Captain Jack seemed less concerned by this than the struggle to cross the ridge. Because we had not beet able to fly in a straight line but had to dodge and weave to avoid bad weather and find ways across the ridges it seemed for a while as if we might have to make an emergency landing but luckily as we neared the coast the flying was easier and we were able to land at the airport in Kota Kinabalu, where an ambulance was waiting to take Alice to hospital.
It had been decided that the helicopter could carry all three of us and our luggage out and take us to KK where Alice could get to a hospital, but after the problem of landing the pilot thought it was too dangerous to take off from such a small space with a heavy load, so he took Alice and Madison back to the Field Centre and then returned for me and the rucksacks.
The Field Centre has a sports field that serves as a landing strip and it was there that that I was joined by the others. Alice lying on a stretcher was lifted aboard and Madison and I squeezed in behind the pilot. The helicopter struggled to take off when we were all in but once it had gained hight we soon left the Field Station behind, and even got a distant glimpse of the Maliau Falls as we approached the crater rim. Getting over the rim proved to be difficult as the weight made it hard to gain altitude. The pilot searched for the lowest part of the rim and then taking the helicopter version of a run and a jump we were over and heading towards KK. The forest spread out beneath us as far as we could see, the whole of the Mailiau conservation area and way over into Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. We were gazing down at the forest below when the door beside Alice's head flew open.Expecting the the stretcher to fly out I was ready to seize Alice by her injured leg, but she calmly shut the door and all was fine again. The carpet of forest gradually thinned and became patterned with the brown threads of logging roads, then the forest below us disappeared completely and was replaced by the ordered lines of the oil palm plantations. But this was not the last of the rainforest as before we could reach KK we had to pass over the Crocker Range National Park. The ridge of high forest covered mountains that runs parallel to the coast from Mount Kinabalu westwards and includes True Madi the second highest mountain in Borneo. Beyond the barrier of the Crocker Range we could see storm clouds building up, held back by the wall of mountains. Our pilot - we later found he was an Italian called Giacommo, known to everyone as Captain Jack. - searched for a safe route through the mountains. Several times he tried to gain the height to cross the ridge but fell back. The helicopter spun round and circled as he searched for a clear gap that did not lead into the gathering storm, then he found one and we were over and weaving our way down a valley below the clouds. The valley led us beyond the untouched forest of the National Park and into a broad cultivated valley. Still flying low it seemed to me that we skimmed over a string of pylons missing the wires by just a few feet, though Captain Jack seemed less concerned by this than the struggle to cross the ridge. Because we had not beet able to fly in a straight line but had to dodge and weave to avoid bad weather and find ways across the ridges it seemed for a while as if we might have to make an emergency landing but luckily as we neared the coast the flying was easier and we were able to land at the airport in Kota Kinabalu, where an ambulance was waiting to take Alice to hospital.