SHAH’S RAMBLINGS

Our first photo-snapping stop during the recent trip to the Sabah interior was at this butterfly park located along the road Dongongon to Tambunan.

There were far fewer butterflies than we expected, unlike the time when I was at the butterfly farm in Penang a few years back. So during our visit to the Kipandi Butterfly Park there ended up being far less butterfly macros than I had hoped for. Still we weren’t disappointed as there were more than ample macro objects to keep us occupied for a several hours here.

The park sits at an altitude of 696m from the sea level right on the Crocker Range and is beautifully flanked by green hills all around. It was cloudy enough that day for us to enjoy to cool mountain breeze as we went about on our quest to find objects interesting enough to capture close up.

It somehow seems more suited to call this an orchid garden instead of a butterfly park since they happened to have a very impressive collection of orchids both the regular hybrids as well as numerous others that were native from the surrounding forests.

These native orchids were unlike any we have ever encountered in terms of their unique shapes as well as their minute sizes.

The park also features an extensive insectarium which showcases thousands of mounted beetles and butterflies including many that are only found in the surrounding jungles. Sorry there aren’t any photos from the insectarium here since it doesn’t seem like theres any beauty in photographing dead insects pinned on cardboards behind glass enclosures.

Of all the shots that day, my personal favourite has to be of this floating flower – suspended as if in mid air by a loose string of cobweb.

The Kipandi Butterfly Park is open daily from 9am to 4pm and the entrance fee for adults is RM10 for Malaysian and RM20 for foreigners with kids at half price.

To get to the park please refer to the map below:

View Kipandi Butterfly Park in a larger map

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