A morning of travel.

We left our hotel in Sandakan by coach and headed to the airport for a short 30min flight back to Kota Kinabalu. Once we arrived in the capital, we hopped on a local ferry boat for a 15min ride to the idyllic island of Manukan Island, our home for the next 2 days.

The island beautiful and is surrounded by clear blue shallow warm waters.

Having gone for a dip we discovered its v salty making you feel buoyant as you loll in the sea.

The views from the resort pier are stunning, like an island paradise with a white sandy beach surrounding.

After relaxing on the beach, we changed into walking gear and joined the sunset tour for a 1 mile jaunt to the far west part of the island.

The route took us along the edge of the jungle with a path that meandered up and down, and due to a landslide disappeared at one point meaning we were climbing along the rocks, so by the time we arrived at the sunset viewing point we were all soaked in sweat.

It was well worth it though, as we came across one of the rarest trees in Malaysia, of which there are only 200 left in the whole world.

We waited for 30mins to watch the red sun slowly set on the horizon and thanked our lucky stars for being able to see such a wonderful sight. It makes you good to be alive seeing nature in its truest form.

Once the sun set it was then a dash back as darkness descended.

With the heat it was a case of a few quick dry off, a change of shirt and then off for dinner at 7pm.

The evening meal with the rest of the group was good fun and we had the added benefit of being serenaded by a guitar playing three piece. The 3 guys were great and took requests and sang renditions of old Elvis and Beatles numbers, along with some more recent Ed Sheeran and George Michael. So entertaining and funny!

Tomorrow we head off snorkelling with a local guide and hope to see some turtles & reef sharks, as well as lots of local shoals of fish.