Mulu National Park - not your average man vs. wild experience

We arrived back in lovely Kota Kinabalu, took a transit flight to Miri, stayed a night at the delightful Dellenia guesthouse, then flew out again the next morning to Mulu National Park. We were looking forward to a lovely relaxing stay, unfortunately it didn’t start well as all out bookings at the park had been removed from their little book of bookings.  This is a little scary as you can only fly in and out of the park, so if you have no accommodation you’re stuffed. After some discussion they were able to just give us another room, which was strange as it took me 3 weeks of emailing and checking to get the room we had originally booked.

The park has been awarded World Heritage status, so we knew it would be a beautiful place to explore. On the first day we took a tour with about 30 other people of two caves and a little village market. You could hear Dave’s inner voice of whinge as we walked through the cave unable to hear our guide, behind the most touristy of tourists. This was not the Bear Grylls experience he was hoping for. We got home after lunch relaxed and little, then headed out to the tree top tower which is 50 meters high and designed for spying on the wildlife of the canopy. After an hour we decided to descend as we had seen a total of 1 bird and 23 butterflies.  That evening we were booked in for a night walk, only 7 tourists this time - much better. The night walk was really fun as we saw much more than we did in the time we spent in the observation tower. Strangely the rain forest is rather devoid of animals. But we did get to see huge stick insects, a green tree fog, a green tree snake, Picher plants, massive spiders (even by Australian standards), giant snails, freaky snails, gecko’s, a bird asleep with he head tucked into his own feather doona and lizards. 

A lady selling used nose flutes at the village market..

A kid in the village

A pterodactyl butterfly near the entrance to Clearwater cave

The entrance to Clearwater cave

On our way to the tree top lookout

The next day we got up early to do the canopy walk, which is a 900 meter loop of suspended planks that you walk across 2 at a time. It’s quite a strange experience being up in the canopy but very beautiful. Once again we didn’t see any slow Loris’, Monkeys or Hornbills just pterodactyl sized butterflies. On the second last plank a whip snake was hiding in a tree, he was skinny with a diamond shaped head and rather uninterested in us even when Dave was swearing at him because he couldn’t get the camera to focus on his head. The annoying gross publicly affectionate hippy couple in our group I’m sure disapproved.

Dave heading across

The canopy walk was made by locals and does not harm the trees it's suspended to

Mr Whip snake

In the arvo we walked to the waterfall along a muddy track while being attacked by biting insects (more wounds to add to my coral burn and sand fly stings). The waterfall was very picturesque, the water was the coldest (and most refreshing) we’ve felt in Asia with Dave even struggling to plunge in.  The fish were abundant and too curious/friendly/dodgy for my liking so my shoes stayed on. 

Dave swimming at the waterfall

A picture straight out of a Sounds of the Rainforest CD

One our third and last day we did and easy 10km walk to Deer and Lang's Caves. These were indeed the reason why Mulu is world heritage, they were spectacular. Langs was very pretty, Deer Cave was something out of movie, it's where Batman should live. It houses 2 million teeny bats that are tiny and very very cute up close. Unfortunately the 2 million bats also poo a lot and it was a bit stinky walking past the layers of Guano. After our tour through the caves, we sat at the bat observation area as the bats leave each day between 5 and 6 if it hasn’t been raining. They hadn’t left the cave the last 3 nights but we were really lucky to see them start to stream out. They come out in 'worms', perhaps a few hundred bats at a time. This process must go on for about an hour. Our necks got sore and our SD card ran out of room so we walked back before the last bat exited the cave.

Formations inside Lang's cave

More formations inside Lang's

The entrance to the Bat (Deer) cave

Inside Deer cave, try to use the leeeetle people in the picture to gain perspective

Looking out from within Deer cave, Guano glistening

Mr Benjamin Franklin or Winston Churchill or Sean Penn from inside Deer Cave

A 'worm' of bats leaving Deer Cave

The Bats up close..

Leaving Mulu via another ATR-72

The next day we flew back to Miri, stayed the night at Dellenia again before heading off the next morning for Kuching.