237 286
SABAH, MALAYSIA
237
June15
Fortunately, we had plenty to fill our days, even with 6am
starts (ahem). Ours roped the staff into building them an epic
sandcastle complete with drawbridge, swam themselves silly
(a perfectly positioned tree over the infinity pool providing a
lovely shady spot for little dippers), and then there was the
nature walk to the sky-bridge. Circling around four huge
dipterocarp trees, it’s basically a super-scale version of the
Jacob Ballas Children Garden’s wibbly-wobbly bridge, but with
phenomenal ocean views and sightings of piqued hornbills,
long-tailed macaques and monkeys. On the way back down,
our four-year-old son Benjamin spotted the zip-line, and that
was that. Our guide Hedros called in support, kitted him up
and off went the little guy, now known as “Batman” (self-
proclaimed), sailing solo high over the Bornean jungle without
a moment’s hesitation!
Of course, tropical islands and spa treatments go together
swimmingly, so Paul and I snuck off post-bedtime one evening
to Bunga Raya’s Solace Spa, crossing the suspension bridge
into a sanctuary of spa suites and all the Asian and Western
massages, scrubs, facials and more that you could wish for.
Add a jungle soundtrack and natural products from Kerstin
Florian, and I reckon we would’ve booked them up every
evening of our stay if we didn’t think at the same time our
offspring were giving the babysitters a run for their money!
Back to reality (tropical island reality, that is), our stay
revolved around mealtimes, so we very quickly made friends
with the dining staff. Good job we did, as they were amazingly
flexible at pandering to our children’s rather interesting
requests – “rice and cheese, please”.
We were always the first ones to hit up the waffle station and
smoothies at The Longhouse’s buffet breakfast each morning,
where this mama would filch a load of house-made custard
and choc-chip biscuits for later (that’s allowed, isn’t it?). With
a few snacks thrown in, this would almost keep us going till
happy hour at Pantai Grill. You couldn’t get a restaurant closer
to the beach if you tried, and the children would tear around
on the sand, leaving us free to enjoy as quiet a cocktail as we
ever get. Cheers to that!