Come on you feckin' bats..
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2009
1
39
52
Trip End
Jan 19, 2010
Mulu, Malaysia
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The caves were indeed impressive - I'm not sure how official the 'largest passage' and 'longest passage' claims are, but they're pretty fucking huge nonetheless... Deer cave (the bat one..) has a river running through it which falls from a tree-clad hole in the far wall dubbed the 'Garden of Eden' - very nice. Lang cave has some particularly nice formations... as does wind cave. Clearwater cave again has a river running through it, which you can step into if you're feeling stupid (it's pretty rapid.. and it's pitch black in there).
Just outside Clearwater cave is the entrance to Turtle cave - a section of easy/intermediate adventure caving. After wandering around in the pitch black, with no paths unlike the 'show' caves, dodging the several-metre drop crevaces and cliffs, you go down into a stream running through the bottom of the cave. Initially the water's only a couple of feet deep, but the low ceiling makes you half crawl through it. Then the water suddenly becomes about 5 feet deep - neck height! Great fun... Jamie and I found the entrance to Racer cave, a more challenging adventure cave with ropes to climb up and down, and tight squeezes to get throuh, but without a guide we only went a hundred metres or so into it. If only there was more time...
Finally saw the bat exodus on my final evening - albeit with some pretty heavy rain making them pretty reluctant to come out. Seeing the rings and waves of bats dodging the bat hawks was pretty impressive still...
