Date: 14th - 15th November 2009
Location: Gunung Ledang, Johor
Event Category: Outdoor Camping
Batch: 01/Nov 09
In conjunction with the Mountain Climbing Series: Gunung Ledang the Legend, Mamenez took the opportunity to experience on how does it 'feel' to camping at this legendary Gunung Ledang.
The park, which is now under the care of Johor National Park is absolutely clean and well managed. It has several camping sites for the visitor and the camping fee is RM5 per head for a night. The camping site is well occupied with basic facilities like public toilet, praying room, cooking area and etc. Besides camping on the ground level, visitors who are planning to climb the mountain may choose to camping on the mountain itself. Located at the middle of the climbing trek, the camping site is perfectly safe and can accommodate up to 150 climbers at one time.
If you decided to camping on the ground level, try to come as early as you can to 'book' your desired camping site. Don't be surprise to see a lot of people at this park as early as 4.00am, especially during weekend.
For this series, we were among the last group to arrive, but we were lucky indeed. Actually, our original plan is to camping on the mountain itself, but at a very last minute, we have changed our plan. We decided to camping on the ground level due to the raining season and we are dare enough to take high risk by camping on the mountain. For that reason, we have been given the last camping site that still available, it named as "Kolam Mahligai" camping site.
Why is it called as "Kolam Mahligai" is simply because it is named after a small pond nearby. "Kolam" is Malay word for pond. So, by having this pond near to our camping site, we are perfectly 'blessed' with its beauty!
Me and the rest of the climbers started our journey to the peak of the mountain while Zahidan and his technical assistant, Bobo take charge of the camping site, operation, food and beverage, etc. By relying on their expertise, it shouldn't be a problem for them to get all the tents, equipment, food and drinks ready before all of us get back from the climbing later. In fact, Zahidan and the crew managed to get everything ready earlier than expected, and with that they enjoyed the "Kolam Mahligai" first. There are several incidents of heavy rain, lost phone and otak-otak, but it does not spoilt the whole camping experience.
Around 6:00pm, one by one climbers return to the campsite, and the first thing that we look for is FOOD! and they are all ready. Awesome.Followed with hot drinks and chit-chatting, it is absolutely awesome. By the way, due to the tiredness of climbing the mountain, most of us fall asleep as early as 8:00pm.
The next day (Sunday), everyone woke up fresh. The tiredness has gone but the pain of climbing is still there. It really 'attacked' our muscle, especially on the leg. But it does not stop us from enjoying our second day to the fullest, with the pond and of course the heavenly waterfall nearby our campsite. *More on the Waterfall later*
After all, at around 12:00pm, we done with the camping, Kolam Mahligai and the waterfall. Closing up with cleaning up the campsite, we leave the campsite as what it is when we first arrived.
Personally, I feel sad to leave but Mamenez will definitely come back here again to fully enjoying the camping experience, for the waterfall and its beauty!
