Mulu National Park part 2 of 2

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Less than an hour's walk from the head quarters, lies the immense Deer Cave: the largest Cave passage in the world... well... until April 2009, when they discovered a bigger one in Vietnam.
Deer Cave is about 100m high and 90m wide: London's St Paul's Cathedral can fit in here. It's hard to give you an idea of the magnitude, if you haven't been here yourself; seeing is believing.
Hopefully the video and photos give you some idea though.

Did you notice the many black spots on the ceiling? Well, that's 2 million bats and they live there. I learned that bats are very useful animals and in no way are they some sort of vampires that many think they are. They eat a lot of insects and drop flower and plant seeds, so they can reproduce. A cave like this, contains an entire eco-system. The bats come out on a clear evening in an endless stream. They have created a true "observatory" for that, but unfortunately, we waited in vain; the bats didn't come out.

So, at dusk, we headed back for the park head quarters for dinner and an early sleep.

The next day was going to be a lazy day. I had only a 2-hour Canopy Skywalk to do in the morning. We had to walk there first, about 30 minutes, until we came to the stairs that led up to a walkway at about 20-30 meters among the jungle trees. Have a look at the pictures to see what I mean. Interesting to be so high up and see the jungle from a different angle. We didn't see a lot of exciting animals, except for a lizard, a walking stick and some sort of grasshopper-like animal, which was very small.

The rest of the day was relaxing, reading a book and so was the next morning. I had to wait for my flight back to Miri in the afternoon. In Miri, I checked into a hotel and walked around a little. In the evening I caught this nice river view on camera... The next day it was on to Brunei!

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Photos

2nd biggest cave corridor in the world
Now I have to visit the biggest cave -in Vietnam- as well, it's almost twice as big... but since explorers just found it, it won't be open to the public very soon...

Whose sillouette is that?
You guessed it... Abraham Lincoln is always present in Deer Cave. Malaysia has its own natural tribute. A little like Mount Rushmore?

Comments

[Jean Toupe]

Mulu NP
Tony, Je foto's worden elke keer mooier/beter. Je wordt zo langzamerhand ook een echte flora en fauna kenner, dat werd natuurlijk ook tijd! Mulu NP lijkt me weer een mooie ervaring (in je lange reeks). We volgen sje berichten met veel plezier. Gr Cathelijn en Jan