The Left Foot
Here I am stealing a few minutes from Open Day meet and greet to post a quick blog. We have music blaring out in our usually quiet library. It is a Romany meets Irish jig version of Vivaldi - I rather like it.

Lots of Aussies in today, mainly engineers and they are the star attraction. Everyone in Kuching is into mechatronics bigtime. Having taken down all the scolding notices from the library notice board, I was left with lots of blank space so have put up some of the information about Lilydale and the Yarra Valley that Louisa and Debbie gave me. So amidst all the vigorous recruiting for Sarawak there is one little corner of the library that is promoting another campus far, far away.

I presented my review of the library yesterday and talked for over an hour. I've been here nearly three months so I figured I'd give them their money's worth. It was judged a good report although I had found a heap of problems in addition to the ones they knew about before. Now we sit back and wait for my reforms to be implemented. As Lynda would say, 'Ha!'

The Right Foot:
Yes, I'm back - I haven't been amputated for my sins - yet! Mulu made a tremendous impression on me, not least because I have been laid up in the Enchanted Tower for the last few days getting over a case of Mulu Tummy (surely it couldn't have been caused by all that Oz red we consumed at the Swinnie nosh-up the other night???).

The caves and the park are so spectacular that writing about them seems banal and certainly, the photos we took somehow manage to compress the awesome into the incomprehensible. So I will share some tiny images of an enchanting place that have lodged in the brain: stepping out of the blatting heat of the full sun into the green dark of the jungle paths and feeling the temperature drop ten degrees; walking along these paths with no other sound but the "switter" of the occasional elephant-ear sized leaf as it fell from the canopy, 60 feet above, magnified in the stillness of the middle of the day; watching our guide act as bowman in the long boat that took us up the river - without saying a single word, he guided the helmsman with the merest crook of a finger to point out the best path through the rapids and shallows; watching a long boat set out on a trip, with a full complement of guys (who all took a pee on the dock before getting in), and noticing their dogs, all dutifully gathered at the pram prow, heads cocked over the side, tails wagging, intently watching the bow wake (Larsen would have loved to include it in a cartoon); the design of the long boats themselves - spare, elongated, elegant craft, only one or two steps removed from dugout canoes, that drew a mere 6 inches of water and seemed to glide over, rather than plough through the water; the sharp eyes and encyclopedic knowledge of our guide who could spot the best camouflaged insect from ten feet away and knew all about the trees and plants and what each was used for; the large family (in all senses) who were blithely setting out for a five day hike to climb Mt. Mulu (only 24 km away but reached by a track that was near vertical in places) - if faith and good nature counts for anything, they deserve to make it and still be talking to each other at the end; sitting out on the verandah in the warm dark evening, watching the LED fire-flies hover around the ceiling to avoid the pair of bats that flew endless figure-eights, scooping up their weight in insects; the young Chinese girl who practically ran into the spinning propellers of the tiny Dornier of Dodgy Airlines so she could get the seat immediately behind the cockpit, then watched the pilot and co-pilot intently for the whole flight - I hope she realises her dream of taking over the lefthand seat one day; on the runway prior to take-off; feeling the Dornier straining at the leash as the pilot ran the up engines on the brakes at the end of the runway prior to takeoff; gazing out over the endless vista of parsley-patch green below the plane's window, knowing that each sprig of parsley was really a meranti tree, or something in the same colourways, of enormous proportions.

The Left Foot
I'm frantically busy in my last couple of weeks with little time to blog. I'm writing up my recommendations for presentation on Friday, interspersed with doing staff appraisals for light relief. Now there's an unpleasant task.
A parcel of Aussies rocked up on Monday and we had a great lunch and a great dinner with lots of hard work in between. It was the first time in months I wasn't outnumbered racewise at a dining table. I don't get stared at on campus so much any more - I am now a fixture.
We have Open Day on Saturday and fortunately enough of our books have arrived to present a reasonable looking library. Everything is being decorated in black and yellow. I keep expecting Matthew Richardson to run through the streamers.
On Sunday we are hoping to get to Lundu to see the Raffellesia in bloom. This is the largest flower in the world but only blooms for a split second every now and then. It will be our last weekend before we get ready for the arrival of Petite Soeur who is spending Christmas with us. It is easy to forget about Christmas here - it's just not happening. What bliss.

The Left Foot
When we got off our Dodgy Air flight yesterday we had to find our way to the MAS airport to catch our connecting flight. About half the passengers had organised transport but those of us who hadn't were standing around wondering if it was too far to walk when the Dodgy pilot offered to drive us in his company car. So we all squeezed in while the pilot drove us to the rival carrier's terminal. Value added service indeed.
On the plane I sat next to a Muslim gentleman in full fig. He asked me where I was from so I told him I was Australian. "That's all right", he said. "Don't worry about it". Then we both opened our newspapers which were full of scathing articles about Australian politicians. Australia has been getting a lot of coverage lately, none of it favourable.

The Left Foot
Our three days at Mount Mulu National Park were brilliant. As Borneo Adventure promised we saw two million wrinkled-lip bats fly out of the cave at dusk, not in a great swoosh as we expected, but in groups of about a thousand in long wavy ribbons that wriggled up the side of the cliff then across the sky. We loved it so much on Friday night we went back on Saturday. Our guide took us through the four show caves one of which is larger than St Paul's Cathedral and has a formation which closely resembles the profile of Abraham Lincoln. We explored one unlit cave by ourselves with a torch and swam in a river flowing out of one of the caves. It was sooo Enid Blyton. Our meals were provided by a company called Jowels who popped up with picnic lunches in eskies with no ice. It was sooo salmonella.
The scenery and wildlife were both spectacular and we heard all sorts of strange noises from all directions during the night - monkeys, birds, dogs and several unidentified. We saw fire flies, glow worms, red millipedes, butterflies, bugs, lizards, geckoes, one snake and 478 species of ants. And bats. At night on our terrace they swooped over our heads to chomp up the mozzies schmoozing around the lights. We cheered like ancient Romans at a lions v Christians fixture.
One of my colleagues here told me it would get cold up there so I took my fleece. Yes folks, its true. I took my fleece to a tropical jungle where the temperature was in the thirties and the humidity running at 98%