Day 3 - Ranau to Sepilok

It’s day 3 in Borneo and day 288 on our adventure and we are off to Sepilok. After stuffing our wee faces with the free breakfast at our hostel we hopped in the car for a 3.5 hour journey North to Sepilok – home to essentially ALL THE WILDLIFE and the world's most famous place to see orangutans in their natural habitat! Are you excited yet? I sure as hell am!
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Well, let’s backtrack a bit as we still need to get there first, and I can tell you now the road is a bumpy one. The drive itself is immensely beautiful, driving through lush green jungle and rainforest but with that of course brings with it a shit ton of rain and massive pot holes on the road. Our wee car very nearly didn’t make it (ok, that’s an overstatement but with narrow roads and trucks, and lorries driven by locals overtaking at every blind corner it was me who nearly didn’t make it, I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO STRESSED)

At 1pm we arrived safely to our ‘Sepilok jungle lodge’ and as we were early, we went to ‘Banana café’ for some grub before check in. I am blown away with this place. Nestled within a tropical virgin Borneo Rainforest, this accommodation provides basic, yet amazing amenities for getting up close and personal to some of Borneo’s best wildlife, right in the garden. It’s also next door to the Orangutan rehabilitation centre which is a must do for the next few days.

We are staying here for 4 nights and it’s costing us $60NZD per night with breaky for a double en-suite and next to the pool which is a BONUS! Oh, and as I’m working every day, I asked that we have a room with WIFI as some don’t have it and boom, they gave us the room beside the router!
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We spent the afternoon checking out the property and enjoying the pool with some beers and a good podcast before dinner which is working our about $4NZD pp per night so budget wise we are doing OK. It was nice to just relax for a few hours before we start packing a crazy amount of activities into the next few days. Sepilok is tiny so there really isn’t any shops or other things to do bar all the wildlife parks so I am stoked that we chose this destination.