Part of the discussions last night had been the option to do the mountain nearby - Mount Bulat.
There were 3 O-Bikes outside the hostel, and 3 of us, so after I persuade the others on the merits of the O-Bike we took one each and rode to the foot of the mountain.
Once we reached there, we decided that we should leave the bikes at the oot of the hill rather than trying to ride them up - they had no gears after all, and it was very steep!
As we left, German couple had passed and started in front of us, though they seemed to be quite fast and we didn't see them all the way up to the main car park.
It was a tough climb on the concrete road, however the views as we gained altitude made it very much worth while, and we enjoyed good banter as we made our way.
At the car park, we had some lunch of sandwiches bought at the 7-11, and got to watch an Eagle or some other large bird of prey flying over the mountain forest.
We headed up the trekking path to the summit, where Jeff and Jordan were a bit slower than me, but it gave me lots of opportunities to stop and rest and admire the views!
Near the summit as we reached the ridge, we passed the German couple coming the other way. The girl was freaking out because a lot of small leeches had decided that she looked like a tasty meal!
There was a lot of screaming and I had to admit to the others that if I hadn't experienced leeches in Malaysia I might well be equally freaked out.
We reached the summit, and unfortunately, like in North West Borneo, there was no view to be seen - it was obscured by the trees being in the way.
On way down, I aw a monkey swinging through the trees, and we joked about how it might be a faster way to get to the base - though in the end none of us opted for that route!
We passed back by a shrine which was half way up, and took a rest to have some water - by this point we were all out of water, and Jordan mentioned how he should have brought more with him ... live and learn!
On the main road after the car park, we made fast time, and overtook the German couple - I had a chat with them, and they advised they were going to take a bus back to the hostel town - this seemed like a great idea, sincec the fact was it had been downhill from there to this location, and on a bsy road, and we didn't feel like riding up hill all the way back.
We made it to the base of the hill just in time for a bus that was going the right way, so we grabbed that, I got to use my magic card to pay, nd we got to relax while the bus took us the 5km or so back to the town in the dark. I can only imagine what it would have been like tying to cycle while powering the dynamo lights, up hill!
We all crowded to a place that had been closed the night before, and enjoyed tasty noodles soup with rice and meat and vegetables - all the more enjoyable or having had good excercis in the day!
I had another chat with the girl from Slovenja again, but as she had no social media accounts and I failed to get email, I guess I probably won't see her again - oh well!