Having got there at a reasonable time I wandered off to try one of the trails from the main town where we were stay (Tanah Rata) with some other English girls we had met on the bus (hello Gemma/Kate/Beccy) (I always get accused of not mentioning other people we've met enough!) up Trail 4 which led up to a watchtower that overlooks the local valley. Not a long walk but long and steep enough to prove to ourselves that we were not as fit as we should be....time to start jogging again when we get to Sydney methinks...
In our wisdom we decided to go back to the Lodge a different route and ended up getting a little lost and making our way back to the town via the main road which wasn't particulary exciting walking. Bizarrely on the way back we rounded a corner on the road to stumble upon an English pub complete with a very nice beer garden and a red telephone box in the middle of the Malaysian countryside - very surreal. There was even a Malaysian guy in a very posh english accent asking us whether "Would we like some afternoon Tea?", after having glanced at the price (16RM for a cuppa) we hastily mumbled something about 'another time' and made a sharp exit.
All in all a busy day - oh and if Mark and Bianca are reading this you'll be glad to know that we have now spread the 'Mafia' game to a whole new audience.....
By the time we left Tarah Rata it was 1130 - and we arrived in Brinchan at midday in the pouring rain - oh well so much for the early start! It is worth noting that the local bus had a brick in front of its tyres in the bus station to stop it rolling down the hill - not the most confidence inspiring sight to see just before you get on board with a madman for a driver throwing the bus around the corners reminicent of Alpine Passes trying to beat his previous time trial record. Ok so I exaggerate a bit but still...
I have to admit if it had been left to Dave and I we would have probably stopped in Brinchan until at least the rain stopped by which time we would have probably found a nice bar and got settled for the day - however we didn't stand a chance of doing this once Gemma had kitted herself out in her full body rain jacket and trousers as set of up the hill out of Brinchan. To give you an idea of how much it had been and was raining the main road was at this point resembling a river and it didn't appear to look like it was about to stop. As it happened eventually the clouds got bored of trying to make every inch of my body soaked through and it turned into a nice day with the sun making a guest appearance - the walk from Brinchan was uphill all the way to the beginning of the tea plantation and once there we looked around the butterfly farm (small but good), and the bee farm (uninspiring) and then made our way up a side road to the Boh Tea Plantation. The views across the tea plantations are brilliant and it's the sort of view that you could look at for hours - I can also vouch that if you pick off the leaves and chew them it's not the same as having a cup of PG Tips (didn't stop me trying several times). I have added a couple of photos below of the tea hills...
We were aiming for Gugong Brinchan which is the top of the mountain near Brinchan (2000m) but were forced to turn around as it was taking us ages to reach the top and we were running out of time before it got dark especially as it left us with a steep decent on a trail we didn't know to get down from the summit back to Brinchan - eventually have retraced some of our steps we were given a lift by very nice Malay guy back to Brinchan and the a taxi ride home (to a hot shower!)
(It's a tough life)
