Mt. Kinabalu

Today was probably the nicest day I have had so far weather-wise. We departed 10 minutes early for the short hop to Sandakan in a completely totally clear sky, with only a hint of morning ground fog. The view of Borneo and Mt. Kinabalu was spectacular ... and typically I left my camera at home.

My mobile phone is equipped with a "camera" so I used it to try and capture as best I could this unique moment of seeing the mountain completely clear of cloud. I'm afraid the pictures don't really do justice to the savage beauty of the scene.

Mt. Kinabalu taken from the South, on approach to Kota Kinabalu.

And again taken on departure from K-K with the harbour in the front.

A few hours later I was landing in drizzly wet and comparatively chilly (17°) Shenzhen. Visibility was just 3000m and we broke out of cloud at 500ft AGL. The mandarin ATC was just as spooky as it was last time I flew to China a few months ago.

The clouds had built up to obscure the mountain for our second arrival into KK but the airfield was still clear and we executed a light-aircraft style visual approach over the water. Proof that flying big jets isn't always about autopilots and fancy automatic landing systems.

S.