The Journey To The Site Of B24 Liberator Crashed WWII Fighter Jet.

With a gap of another weekend before starting of the holy month of Ramadhan, we have decided to accomplished another hiking expedition at Gunung Berembun, Jelebu, Negeri Sembilan.  This is the 2nd group of the same expedition within 3 weeks gap.  The different is, the 2nd group only joined by 3 members, while the 1st group was 4 times bigger.

It is not that the journey is tough, or boring, or whatsoever.  But a last minute changes due to unexpected replacement class, assignment submission, and such that make the numbers narrowing down.  Surprisingly the expedition was without any student members at all.  Well you know why...

And because of the remarkable experienced told by the 1st group that make my desire grow to achieve the same purpose... and there was a new lecturer who wanted to have the first experience of hiking just to prove to her military fiancee that she is tough... so the expedition still proceed.

Gunung Berembun, Jelebu ...with the peak located at 3,160 ft from sea level....

The journey is consider mediocre, comparing our previous hiking at Gunung Nuang.  But the special of this expedition is the hidden journey to the site where B24 Liberator British Fighter Jet crashed during World War II.  Not many people knew about it and not many hikers reached to the site.  It is like only permitted by the jungle.

With only spirit and confident towards our only experienced hiker to guide us the whole journey, we embarked to the location sited near Kampung Pantai, Negeri Sembilan.  The journey took less than 1 hour through Lekas Highway from Kajang.

we reached at the starting point whereby we have to park the car near the water station

we took the time to take picture at the sign..

around 5pm...

We started late trekking to the camp site because of a few pit stop along the way.  Because it was on Friday, we only start the accelerator after Friday prayer.  The journey took us 2 hours to reach to the camp site.  The weather was fine but we been approached by a few leeches along the way...

The journey wasn't that bad because of the horizontal terrain.  Just a few ascending hills that required our energy to climb.  The trek was easy with oblivious trail that decorated with a few of fallen logs slowing us down.

We reached the camp site around 7 pm.  We managed to set up the camp before dark.  The river was nearby but because of a fallen huge log that buried the easiest river trek, we have to struggle way down to the river.  We need to take our bath and to perform prayer too...  that is called adventure...

fallen logs along the river .. the journey to the camp site

we've reached the camp site!

7.15 am....

After sleepless night sleep (with coughing a lot the whole night), we woke up early (around 5.30am)to prepare breakfast and food supply during the hiking later.  With only 3 of us, the journey will be easy and fast and I determined that we reached back to the camp site before dark.  No way I would hike at night...

The thing is, unlike the 1st group, we didn't have a local guide to assist us through the journey.  It happened that they were not available in the last minute.  But we put our full confident to our leader who have a vast experienced hiking at Gunung Berembun a few times before. (my finger crossed behind)...

food preparation before the journey started..

one of our earliest journey to the peak...

the look of the jungle..

we've reached at the 'Kandang Kambing'... the only spot where you can get coverage for your handphone!

Our starting journey was laid back and wonderful.  We stumbled upon a several river crossing and a small snake!  It took us about 2 hours to reached 'Kandang Kambing' for resting.  This is also the last spot for water supply.  Amazingly, you can get coverage to make a last call out!  So I'm checking on my children ..:)

Kandang Kambing was a name given by the local.  This is because there was one time a pair of ibex were resting under the huge natural makeshift rocks.  That particular spot where the ibex resting also were known by the local for a door to the other 3 dimensional world.  It was quite scary knowing that so we didn't rest for long...

the last water supply at Kandang Kambing..

We continued our journey to the peak not knowing the trek were getting tougher and tougher.  The slope were almost 90 degree angle and at some point it is impossible to climb without the help of the roots.  It took us another 2 hours or more to reached to the peak..

tougher terrain.. but I'm still smiling.. wearily..

we found a scented resin at the nearby tree...

a resin that can produce fire when we light it up on that particular tree...

we've reached the peak!  The background is the beirut sculpture ... sign of the peak site...

We reached to the Gunung Berembun's beirut (it's means the peak) around 11.15am.  There we're having our sandwich snack to fill up before continuing the journey.

at the peak there were time the mist come by for few minutes.. that's why it is called 'berembun' or dewy.  you can find at the peak, the conditions were moist even though the weather were hot..

We didn't stop at the peak too long.  Around 11.35 we continue the journey to the site of the plane crashed.  The journey was quite easy terrain but the route somehow misleading.  You couldn't see the trail easily with lots of bushes and branches cover.  Luckily the 1st group have made it a bit easy for us.. just follow the mark along the trees..

It took us another 2 hours to reach to the site.  Along the way we stumbled upon a dozen of look a like lemon fruit (but it is not).  I don't know the name but according to my friend, it is a very rare fruit with the smell of like passion fruit.  It is used for medicine and it is not widely used commercially.  That is why we called them 'buah hutan'.

But the 1st group were more lucky... beside found the rare fruit, they also found a very rare yellow gold tortoise slowly walking past them at the same spot we found the fruit.  Their local guide said it is a lucky tortoise that might produced gold eggs! How amazing!!

courtesy picture from the 1st group...

around 1.30pm....

We reached at the spot where the crashed plane crashing down the ravine as far as 200m deep.  Immediately we went down the ravine to find the much sought talk about crashed WWII British fighter jet.  But before we reached there, even at the earlier trail, we found some pieces of the plane scattered around.

pieces of the plane..

part of the propeller...

part of the wing broken when crashing through the trees..

down at the ravine we found a huge part of the wing covered mostly with creepers..

at the back of the wing.. you can see down under it is a small river..

following along the river, you can find more pieces of the plane.  here a piece of still intact and in good condition  tyre with the name clearly seen.. Goodyear.. 

the last piece we found along the river is the body... very huge!

the inside of the body...

at the body of the plane there's a name stated for the plane... R Snake..

beside the plane, we're checking and filling our water bottle with the water at the river

last moment before went back to the campsite..

It is told that the passenger of the plane were all 8 British troupe.  Didn't know where they were heading but they obviously experienced some difficulties resulting crashed at the spot.  7 of them died on the scene.  The only survivor happened to be seating at the back (near the tail) were considered lucky.  While the head were badly burnt and explode... including the pilot.

All the the remained 7 were buried nearby the body of the plane. (Which located up the hill where the photographer shoot the picture above.)  He didn't mentioned it to us, worried we would feel unease on our way back.(I know I would..)

It's been a while the site to be forgotten when some group of Malaysian military accidentally found the site again which is still in good condition. (It happened near Gunung Berembun is Telapa Buruk, a military site only permitted by request)...

We had our lunch after visiting the historical site with much delicious nasi goreng we prepared earlier.  Then we quickly embarked back to the beirut.  However we lost along the way thrice but we managed to find back our way.  We reached at the beirut around 5.15pm..

along the way back to the beirut, it was raining but not heavily... thank god we prepared to bring along our rain breaker..

In order to reach back at camp site before dark, we hurriedly ran back at the same route.  Unfortunately it was raining and the trail was slippery and it's hardened our journey..

We reached at our camp site around 7.30pm.. Alhamdulillah..

The next morning we comfortably unlike the day before, preparing our breakfast... nasi lemak.  It was the most tastier and wonderful nasi lemak we ever had.  After eating the breakfast, slowly we packed back and clear the campsite.  Around 10.30am we embark back to our car to go home...

preparing the nasi lemak on the small stove..

the delicious set of nasi lemak...

All the while for 3 days in the jungle.. we had been biting by leeches... a lot of them!!  And for a week and more our body were itching because of it..