August 18,

We got up and about. I started sorting for repacking. Jeff had gone down and started a load of laundry. This place had a little laundromat. It was on the corner of our building on ground level, without walls. We had our Javas on the balcony; and then breakfast of Muesli and yogurt inside. Then we talked with my sister; finished packing up; checked out; and left by 1030.

Now we headed off in our Perodua Axia car. Our destination is to the Northern most point of Borneo. Google says it will take us almost 4hours to drive only 192 km or 119 miles to get there. Jeff thinks he can knock time down 20 minutes! But I don’t know. We hit a long construction area and there was an accident, according to Google, that may cause a 20 minute delay. So we pulled off there and had a couple of chicken sandwiches at a filling station “fast” food place. It was not fast, but it did not really matter. We had time and the food was fuel. The fries were like Peri-peri fries, spicy and quite good.

We followed Highway #3 out of Kota Kinabalu or “KK,” as so many people call it. I enjoyed our stay there, even though we did not do a lot there. The roads were okay and we did make up time. We went through a number of mountain ranges, but still kind of along the coast – as in we could see the ocean every once in a while. We finally turned off on the #3 and go a more northerly fashion as the #3 turns east. The roads have become really small now – way less traffic, and have become sketchy – most filled with potholes, some turned totally gravel. But Google did not fail us and got us right to our little place, called Kudat Beach House. It is a five room little accommodation. Our place is one of two stand alone huts. The other three are in a strip mall-like setting. We had paid a bit extra to have the end one and it is literally 50-ish feet from the ocean. We arrived at 1539 – Jeff had shaved 12 minutes off of the predicted time. Anyway, we unloaded our stuff and settled in, unpacking and then went out and walked the beach. It appears to be a very quiet, and little used beach, called Kalampunian Beach. There were only half a dozen people here – all in the water. The beach itself is clean and very walkable in a sweeping, small crescent shape. We did not go the whole length, and stopped at a sitting area. We thought to stay sitting and watch the sunset here, but a lady from a snack stand came over from across the little road and said it was a paid sitting area. So we left and walked back to our place. We made up a lettuce salad, split the PB and coconut jam sandwich we made in KK, and had some blue cheese on crackers as we sipped an adult beverage. The sunset unfolded. It was not the best we have seen but it was the first we had seen in quite some time. It was lovely – sitting there watching it and hearing the surf, crashing waves! It was still hot, but nice. We went inside our little hut/room and finished watching it. Before we went to bed we went out and gazed at the starry heaven… we have not seen this in a very long time – even saw the Milky Way! Blessed evening!