We hadn't planned to go to the Cameron Highlands. To be honest we hadn't planned much at all. Our Malaysian plan was made the night before leaving Singapore while pouring over a map and enjoying beer at Hooters. This is the nature of our journey. The drive up to the Cameron Highlands was a great drive and gave the Alfa an opportunity to really shine. Endless hairpins and switchbacks but sadly the odd on-coming driver whose impatience exceeds his abilities. Nevertheless, alpine driving is always a highlight.

The highlands are famous mostly for growing tea. It was our first tea plantation and we learnt a lot the subject on an excellent tour. Tea plantations really do make for wonderful landscape shots.

The other natural wonder we really enjoyed was the mossy forest. It really does live up to it's reputation, it's an ecosystem based on moss. We also came across the remains of an Australian war installation. During the Malayan conflict in the fifties Australian troops where deployed into these jungles to find and engage communist guerrillas. This concrete pillar that Julian and I are leaning against was a based used to look for cooking fires. It was quite moving to be there half a century later, especially as it was ANZAC day. There was also large numbers of the carnivorous plant, the pitcher plant in the mossy forest. I used to have one in a pot when I was in Melbourne that clung to life in-spite of my ineptitude. Here they were massive, numerous, full of colour and very special.
This may be lost on most people viewing this blog but one of the joys of the Cameron highlands for us was their default choice of vehicle. Presumably a lot of the tracks become difficult to pass in the wetter months because ever second local vehicle was a Landrover Defender. They had some wonderful old ones full of character. With unmatched off road ability through the muddy terrain and aluminium bodies that never rust the defender was the vehicle of choice. For those who can appreciate them here is a small selection :)