Welcome to the jungle

‘You better run like Usain Bolt!’ said Nicholas in response to my question. He had just been telling me about how he found himself face to face with a leopard the last time he walked along this jungle trail and I asked him what he thought I should do if I met a leopard today. I ponder for a moment the obvious impossibility of me running anything like the world’s fastest man or having any hope of outrunning a hungry leopard and conclude it’s probably best I don’t meet a leopard today. I’ll hope for a nice monkey or a pretty bird instead.

Nicholas, a national park tour guide, is leading us along the Headhunter trail deep in the jungle of Gunung Mulu National Park in Malaysian Borneo.

The trail stretches for almost 12 kilometres through the jungle. In days gone by headhunting tribes used this route to attack rival parties. Thankfully headhunting no longer happens and the trail is used by local people and tourists. These days leopards are about the scariest things that live here. You no longer need to fear meeting a headhunting warrior on the trail but you may find yourself sharing the path with some other jungle creatures.

The hiking trail extends from Camp 5 to Kuala Terikan by the river in at the national park’s boundary. It is about as remote as you can get. Our journey to reach this point began with a flight to Mulu airstrip from Brunei three days ago and a two-day stay in Mulu National Park headquarters, from where we explored some of the famous Mulu caves and the sky canopy walk. From there it was a ride down the river on a long boat followed by a five kilometre jungle trek into Camp 5 from where we made a very challenging side to the Pinnacles.

So, if you want to walk this headhunter trail you have to really want to be here. It’s not somewhere you can just ‘pop over’ to for the day. Perhaps the remoteness and effort required to get here is one of the reasons why the trail is not overrun with tourists. We don’t see another person other than our guide all day.

There seems to be some confusion or dispute as to what exactly constitutes the Headhunter trail. Many tour companies offer packages named after the Headhunter Trail that include the Mulu Park caves and the rivers into and out of the national park. (In fact we have used one of these tour packages ourselves to get here.) Information available on a Mulu National Park website indicates that ‘the trail itself follows the route taken by Kayan headhunting parties who paddled up the Melinau River to Melinau Gorge. They then dragged their longboats through the forest for 3 km until they reached the banks of the Terikan River, where they launched headhunting raids against the people of the Limbang area.’ However, Nicholas is of the view that this section of jungle trail alone was the actual Headhunter trail. According to the stories that have been passed down through his family, this trail was the main road used by the different tribes in the areas to fight and also trade. The first half of the trail was typically controlled by the Kayan people, a group said to be very aggressive and war like. The latter part of the trail, from where the track crosses the river, was traditionally the turf of the Iban people.

Trekking along this trail is hot and sweaty work but otherwise relatively unchallenging. There are no steep ascents or descent and no rock scrambling. Whenever a branch obstructs our path Nicholas makes short work of it with a machete ensuring we have a clear trail all the way.