Mulu 30th/31st March

A beautiful cloudless day to leave Kuching (see Paul enjoying a final doze by the pool!).

Last moments by the pool in Kuching

 We clambered aboard the tiny propeller plane for our flight to Mulu national park, a 90minute hover below the clouds so a superb view of the Borneo coastline, rivers, forests-and deforestation!

Rivers meandering

Scenes of deforestation

The landing strip here is in a field by the park entrance, so the handful of us in the little plane climbed out, dodged the propellers, waited for the pilot to unload our luggage from behind his seat, and boarded improvised ‘cash in hand’ taxi service run by local villagers for the five minute journey here.

Please pass me my bag

It then took longer to check in than to get here; turns out most people come via agency bookings, so us independent souls confuse their system, but luckily for us our booking and the end result matched, apparently a result!! Their online system is, um, basic..

But the park truly is magnificent! Impossible to describe the sheer scale of the Deer Cave; the largest cave passage in the world. It took my breath away! The vaulting roofs are black with millions of bats, hence the nightly ‘show’ where the colonies stream out of the cliff face to forage for food.

On our first evening the bat colonies streamed in ‘wavy wisps rather than the more impressive continuous spiral, but still a tremendously moving sight as they poured out of the cliff face in the setting sun.

Evening Bat exodus

On our second day we swayed over the trees in the high canopy walk in brilliant sunlight, peering down above the dense forest, slowly edging our way along the primitive rope bridges spanning the massive trees, stopping to stare down through the foliage to the river far below. No monkeys then, but later a trope appeared high on the cliff face, illuminated against the limestone rock, shinning down the tree roots to feast on berries in the branches.

Exploring the Deer Cave and its much much smaller neighbour the enchanting glistening limestone palace Lang Cave took us from the heights to the depths of the park floor.  The sunset hours coincided with a sudden tremendous rain/thunderstorm so the bats remained inside, and I can’t say I blame them! We, on the other hand, got incredibly wet!

But walking in the pitch darkness along the 3 km boardwalk back from the Deer Cave to park hq/our bungalow it was as if we were the only humans here; a magical hour with lightening streaking across the night sky, fireflies flickering around us, snakes slithering past us caught in our flashlights-one holding up his frog ‘supper’ proudly in his jaw, and the only sound, bar the rumble and clap of thunder, that of frogs/birds/rainforest whispers.

There is total silence here now at 9pm on our second day, everyone is bedding down for the night, people and animals alike. The park is quiet, we’ve had our own  (required) guide for the caves/canopy walk as there are currently more staff here than visitors, their individual attention which has been incredibly informative and helpful; our cave guide insisted there is a spiritual feel to this park and I have to agree, the sheer scale of everything defies description.