Tinggi-Tinggi Gunung Kinabalu,

Tinggi lagi sayang sama kamu,

Biru-biru hujung Kinabalu,

Tengok dari jauh

Hati saya rindu…..

Or for the non-Malay readers…..

Mount Kinabalu is high high,

But not as high as my love for you,

Blue blue Kinabalu,

I look at it,

And my heart goes out to you….

The above is a famous Sabah song by Kimin Mudin about the mountain and my favourite ditty at the minute. Why don't you youtube "Sayang Kinabalu"?

This mountain is Sabah. The biggest tourist attraction in Borneo, the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in Malaysia, Mount Kinabalu is surrounded in folklore, its foothills and dramatic rockfaces draped in swirling clouds, its impressive peak rising starkly from the jungle.

Towering 4095m above northern Borneo, Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain between the Himalaya's and the island of New Guinea. To put its size into context, the two mountains I climbed last year come in at 850m (the mighty Slieve Donard which I conquered in January with Deeds Daly and the Wee Man) and 749m (the great Errigal during the Doochary Festival last July). Kinabalu is quite unlike any other mountain on earth, rising almost twice as high as its Crocker Range neighbours and culminating in a crown of wild granite spires.

As colourful as the trail which led me to the summit are the stories about how Kinabalu got its name. Some believe it is a corruption of the local tribe (the Kadazan)'s "Aki Nabalu", or the "revered place of spirits". The Kadazan believe the mountain to be inhabited by ghosts and used to carry out human sacrifices on the mountain, carrying their captives, maybe some virgins, to the summit in bamboo cages where they would be speared to death. Our Kadazan guide didn't bring anyone up in a bamboo cage but there were times when I would have been glad of the lift and even times when death seemed an option for discussion. Today the Kadazan sacrifice instead chickens, eggs, cigars, betel nuts and rice on the rock plateau below the Panar Laban rockface. Better not to waste any more virgins, I suppose, especially because virgins are harder and harder to come by in this day and age.

Another theory about the derivation of the mountain's name is that a Chinese prince arrived on the shores of northern Borneo and went in search of a huge pearl on top of the mountain, which was guarded, of course, by a dragon. He duly slew the dragon, as you do, grabbed the pearl and married a beautiful Kadazan girl. After a while he grew homesick and took the boat to China, promising his wife that he would return. She climbed the mountain every day for years on end to wait for her husband's boat. The f*cker never came back. In desperation and depression, she lay down and died and was turned to stone. The mountain was christened "China Balu" (Kinabalu) or "Chinaman's widow".

Take, if you will, this advice which we plucked from the relatively reputable resource of the Lonely Planet: "Do not consider an ascent unless you are in good physical shape. The climb is uphill 99% of the way - an unrelentingly steep path up large dirt steps and overpiled rocks. A couple of sections on the summit massif require that you haul yourself up using thick ropes. Every step can be a struggle as you suck oxygen from the thin air, and it is not unusual for people to give up within sight of the summit". I stopped reading after the bit about people dying on the mountain.

It took us two days to conquer the beast. It took us five hours by car from Sepilok to reach the starting point at Timpohon Gate, from where it is 8.72km to the summit. We began at 9am and most of the first day was spent getting to Laban Rata (6km) in time for dinner. We stayed in a basic lodge, readying ourselves for a 2am start to attempt the summit in time for sunrise at about 5.30am. My thick Down hoodie, Berghaus fleece and the woolly hat knitted for me by my cousin, Orla, were my best friends. So was AC/DC, as they powered me up the initial section to Sayat-Sayat. DC guarantee that you will have no ballads. DC guarantee a beat to which you can climb.

The last stretch from Sayat-Sayat to the summit is the steepest and hardest part of the climb. More desolate rock faces and hoisting awaited us stretching out in the dark, trying to keep warm while holding ropes and torches. The summit looks deceptively close but the last burst took nearly two hours from Saya-Sayat. We saw some people reduced to crawling on hands and knees up the last few boulders to the small area at the summit, struggling to suck in whatever oxygen the top of Borneo can spare them. Not me. I have ran to Clough Mor. I have braved the meadow in Rostrevor. I have sprinted up the 'hill' at Violet Hill. I made it for sunrise.

The successful summit attempt of Kinabalu was my not-very-relaxing reward after nine days non-stop volunteering at Platform 4 on husbandry. This was my favourite time so far. We carried baskets of bananas, watermelon, sugar cane, sweet potatoes and milk/electrolyte into the rainforest to a feeding platform where all the semi-wild orang-utans came to complement their wild berry diet. It was amazing watching them swing over to us, rummaging around for their breakfast and lunch, and interacting with each other in their natural habitat. This is a beautiful place, the huge forest towering over us in the sunlight, a place where no tourist has been and where only the Sepilok staff are permitted.

I have already mentioned Ampal. The little protein deficient Gollum who is addicted to w*nking and looks from the back a bit like Aston Villa's Ashley Young on a bad day. We had the pleasure of releasing him out at Platform 4 on our husbandry stint. He will find it difficult, because the 'Pirates' (the group of young males - Oscar, Miko, Tiger, Brock and Toby) will bully him. He is also vulnerable to attack from evil macaques and his climbing skills need serious work. He has tried to make his way back to the clinic on several occasions and on some days we worried when we could not find him. But this is where he needs to be to learn to cope.

There are some other very interesting characters out at Platform 4. Each of the orang-utans has their Sepilok number tattooed on their leg when they arrive at the centre. Brock, standing bow-legged and confident out in the rainforest displays his 666 tattoo as proudly as his dangling balls. He looks at you right in the eye, as if to say, "I'm gonna come over to you, and you're gonna give me some food, and maybe even some sex".

However, when it comes to sex, one orang-utan stands out by a country mile. Sogo Sogo. She is the Platform 4 slut. All the Pirates have a go at her at their leisure. Even when she is not getting it, she will lie around others who are engaging in lovemaking and she will stare at them longingly. I think she has got deep-rooted relationship issues as well as a severe dose of nymphomania.

Miskam is the boss. He is the largest orang-utan that we see at Platform 4. He is developing his flanges, his cheek flaps, to evidence his dominance. He is built like a sh*t brick house and all the other males are afraid of him. Miskam has a girlfriend, Anakara, to whom he shows great affection.

When feeding milk to Anakara last week I saw a leech on her forehead. I moved my hand over to her face to take it off. Miskam was sitting beside her and brushed my hand away authoritatively. I wasn't going to mess with him. But how was I going to explain that I was trying to help his woman? Before I was able to make my next move, Miskam reached over to Anakara's face and gently pulled the leech from her forehead. Know your place Kearney. Don't touch my woman.

Finally there is the elusive C.I.D. If Miskam is the boss, C.I.D. is God. No-one ever sees him as he is totally wild and doesn't fraternise with any of the other orang-utans. He is so big, so aggressively dominant that both Miskam and all the experienced rangers run at the slightest sign of his approach. It is only to mate that he appears. Whoever he wants. I have seen pictures of him and listened to the regard in which he is held by the Sepilok rangers. At mating time, if he wants to f*ck me, I'm afraid there is nothing I will be able to do about it.

The walk out to Platform 4 through the jungle itself each morning and afternoon is an absolute pleasure. Once you get over the clinging leeches, especially after it has rained (armed with a bottle of dettol and leech socks), the ridiculously hairy and vicious-looking caterpillars and spiders, and the evil macaques, you get to witness the beauty of the various layers of the forest and teeming life at every turn. Platform 4 itself is emotional stuff, leaves falling through the wide open trees, light bursting through whatever holes it can find in the canopy, orang-utans moving gracefully through the trees.

Now I am volunteering on the trekking module, where we trek through trails in the rainforest completing surveys on orang-utan nests with one of the Sepilok rangers. Just like a day out in the Municipal park in Warrenpoint. Except without the coat and Genoa icecream.