Desa Cattle Dairy Farm, Kundasang

When you and your family travel to the area around Kinabalu Park, the one place that you should not miss is Desa Cattle Dairy Farm at Kundasang. There are reasons why this place is one of the tourists' favorites. It is not just because it looks like those farms in New Zealand. Located at the foothill of Mount Kinabalu, the scenery around this farm is simply stunning. Inside the farm, you can find interesting activities for young children.

Heavy clouds cover the mountain behind the farm in most hours of the day except early morning.
With luck, you may be able to catch a glimpse of the mountain as backdrop view of the farm.

We caught a glimpse of cattle roaming at wild.

Location of the Farm...

You can drive from Kundasang town follow the road leading towards Kundasang War Memorial & Garden. This is the same road towards Mesilau Nature Resort, the starting point of Mesilau Trail. You will first drive downhill into the valley of Kundasang and then uphill passing by beautiful terraced farm land of the local villagers. Follow the main road until you reach the signboard of Desa Cattle Dairy Farm. You need to turn left and drive a little bit more.

The road and the slope out from Desa Cattle Dairy Farm.

A wider view of the landscape inside the valley of Kundasang.
We were driving out of Desa Dairy Farm towards Kundasang town centre.

What To Do at the Farm...

This is a place suitable for tourists of all ages.

• The view is stunning when you travel through Kundasang's valley. The landscape is beautiful with terraced farm lands, villagers' homes, hills, valley, etc.
• Desa Cattle Dairy Farm located at the higher ground of foothill with Mount Kinabalu as backdrop. When the cloud unveil the mountain, the view is stupendous. 
• It really gives you a feeling of cattle farmland, i.e. the road leading to farm house, the roaming cattle, etc. and of cause, a little bit of the the smell of farm. There is this excitement of seeing the black and white cows in real life for the first time. It is a very different experience. ;-)
• You can watch the process of feeding and milking the cows in a clean environment through huge glass windows!
• There is a cafe in the lobby area. If you are tired of walking around, just sit down to have a cup of tea...or ice cream!
• Children can have fun feeding the calves and goats. There is a calf pen where you can buy bottle milk and grass to feed the calves. Young children will love it.
• Located at approximately 2000 meters above sea level, the weather is cool and comfortable for strolling around.

The entrance of Desa Cattle Dairy Farm. I think the entrance fee is RM2.00 per person.
It is located on the way from Pekan Kundasang to Mesilau Nature Resort.

The clouds covered the mountain most of the time. 

Foothill of Mount Kinabalu and the cattle farm.

A sense of New Zealand kind of cattle farm. 

The cows queued up to enter "production line" to be milked and for food.

Walking towards the calf pen where the children can have their fun time feeding the calves and goats.

Waiting to be fed my children's bottle milk.

Looking from a far to Desa Cattle Dairy Farm

I took the two photographs below standing at the hilltop at the other side of Kundasang Town. I was at Pine Kinabalu Resort. You can see Desa Dairy Farm is situated at a plateau located at the foothill of Mount Kinabalu and higher part of the valley.

The farm is located at the plateau at the right side of this photograph.

Looking at Desa Cattle Dairy Farm from the hill top of another side of Kundasang.

From Other Bloggers/ Writers

• A really comprehensive write up, photographs and video about Desa Cattle Dairy Farm by Huislaw. There are beautiful and interesting photographs.
• Kairul Izwan, a blogger and traveller, has an interesting blog post on his experience visiting Desa Cattle Dairy Farm. There are nice photos with informative information.
• The other blogger, Caroline, has very nice photos of Desa Cattle Dairy Farm in her blog. There are a lot of photographs on feeding the calves and goats. See photos of the children happily feeding the calves.
• The blog post of WongLC, a tour operator, on Desa Cattle Dairy Farm.
• Here are the opinions of Trip Advisor's users who visited the farm.

Scenic road through the valley of Kundasang towards Desa Dairy Farm and Mesilau Nature Resort.

Other Resources from the Internet

• The official Facebook page of Desa Cattle Dairy Farm. I sincerely think they can improve the graphic of the FB page.
• More information about the cattle farming at Desa Cattle Dairy Farm by Malaysia Tourist Spot website.

Other Places Around Kinabalu Park

You can visit many places along the way to Desa Cattle Dairy Farm.

• Dream World Resort is just a "few steps" away from the farm. At the hillside along the road from Kundasang Town, you turn left to Desa Cattle Dairy Farm or turn right to Dream World Resort. It has a magnificent view of Mount Kinabalu (due to proximity, the mountain looks HUGE at Dream World Resort) and the landscape of Kundasang Valley.
• Mesilau Nature Resort
• Kundasang War Memorial & Gardens

These are the places located near to or along the road to Desa Cattle Dairy Farm. You can spend an afternoon visit all these places.

Map of the Area

The complexity of Google Maps has gone beyond my ability to embed a simple map in this blog. It was an easy task. But I really have got confused in Google maps, Google Maps Engine, Google Maps Engine Pro and another Google Maps Engine for business, etc.

But it seems I can still share my maps through a link. This is my Kundasand map to Desa Cattle Dairy Farm link.

Somehow, I did manage to embed a direction map from Kinabalu Park's Headquarter to Desa Cattel Dairy Farm. It takes about 6.1 KM from Kinabalu Park's Headquarter to the center of Pekan Kundasang (Kundasang Town). From Pekan Kundasang, you will need to drive another 4.2 KM through the valley road towards Mesilau Nature Resort.