Wildlife adventurers share their Malaysian stories at Exmouth talk

In a talk at Glenorchy Church Hall, visiotrs will get to hear about Roger and Liz Hamling’s Malaysian Adventure.

A couple of intrepid explorers, from the Exmouth division of the Devon Wildlife Trust, will be sharing stories from their travels around Malaysia, at a presentation in Exmouth in February.

Wildlife experts Roger and Liz Hamling toured the south-east Asian country to explore exotic habitats and investigate wildlife, from butterflies to crocodiles, from flowering plants to forests.

They started their journey in East Ledang, a small village in the extreme south of Malaysia. The houses in the community had cultivated gardens and there were playgrounds for the children. Roger and Liz noticed how the wildlife, such as sunbirds and large Malaysian water monitors moved in to the habitats around the houses and artificial flood relief lakes.

Then, Roger and Liz's travels took them to a nearby mangrove swamp reserve, where the mud was alive with fiddler crabs and mud skippers, and troops of long-tailed macaques roamed the area with their young clinging to their fur. On a boat excursion they explored coastal creeks and watched hundreds of fireflies sparkle over the river in the evening.

They then visited a nearby native forest area, where after seeing some scarce dusky leaf monkeys, Liz and Roger decided to cool their feet in the stream. Yet this was not such a good idea, especially when they discovered that some hungry leeches had latched on to their legs.

The adventures took Roger and Liz north to the Cameron Highlands, an area consumed with a dense canopy of forest. After a visit to a tea plantation, they hired a guide to find some of the forest wildlife such as birds and several endemic species.

The last leg of the journey involved a very fast boat trip to Pulau Sibu, an idyllic island where the beaches flaunt brilliant white sand. The central part of the island is covered with natural forest and filled with many dragonflies and butterflies.

Roger and Liz Hamling will host their Malaysian Adventure presentation, complete with photos and wildlife examples, on Monday, February 10, at 7.30pm, at Glenorchy Church Hall in Exmouth. Tea, coffee and biscuits are included in the £3 admission.