Nobody in the quehad heard of this form and the rather oily man said that the Indonesian government had brought it in about five days before. Whilst queuing to register for the flights with Qatar Airlines a smarmy employee of said company sidled over to us and asked if we had our ‘statement of health’ forms on our smartphones. Geordie drove us down to Heathrow where he had arranged for a company to look after his car for the month we were away. The expedition was almost over before it began. It was decide to film the expedition for a documentary feature, a collaboration between the CFZ and Dragonfly Films. With some of David’s money Carl and Geordie had brought some professional level cameras, a drone camera and some new camera traps. Geordie and Carl had visited the neighbouring island of Borneo twice before but neither had been to Sumatra. Myself, Carl Marshall and Andrew ‘Geordie’ Jackson would make up the team along with Dally and the local porters. Dally would seek out the latest sightings and witnesses and find us places to stay.ĭally Sandradiputra, independant researcher and writer We contacted our Sumatran guide DallySandradiputra, who had been trained by our original guide Sahar Dimus and booked up a whole month in Sumatra, longer than we had ever been in the field before. We ‘had form’ there, having been to the Indonesian island looking for the upright ape, five times before. We decided upon a return to Sumatra on the trail of orang-pendek (the short man in Indonesian) an upright walking ape. He decided that with the CFZ he could see exactly how his donation was being spent and that he would like to back an expedition. David said he wanted to donate to conservation but didn’t know where is money would be spent by charities. Mr David Ayres, second cousin to CFZ stalwart Carl Marshall had won a whopping 177 million pounds on the National Lottery. We always hankered for a rich patreon to back longer, better equiped trips. Our expeditions are generally limited to a fortnight once a year, not a great way of finding an unknown species unless you are exceptionally lucky. The CFZ has always been limited by lack of the green folding stuff.
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