Journey to the fire mountain of Borneo (Mulu Trip)

[kuching]

After so many many years, I finally had a chance to visit Mulu National Park & climbed the Gunung Api (Fire Mountain)!!!

Some shots to share before I start to post my pictures from day 1 to day 4....
(including tons of pictures of flora & fauna except fish...as I don't have underwater camera)


The pinnacles of the Fire Mountain:







A longhouse @ Mulu National Park





The rare green coloured lantern bug






....to be continued.

[kuching]

May 14, 2009. A great evening to go out with photokaki at Miri to shoot the night scenery of this beautiful oil city before going to Mulu.


Miri is located in the most northern part of Sarawak.




Canada hill @ Miri





The new flyover





The decoration inside a hotel





.....to be continued.

[benetay]

Lovely! Can't wait to see more!

Cheers!

[celticfish]

Michael, you are making me drool again lah!
BTW what are the pinnacles made of/from?
I'm intrigue by how its formed, from a geological perspective...

[kuching]

Thanks Benetay & Celticfish.

pinnacles are made of limestone.

[kuching]

En route to Mulu using ATR aircraft:


Before reaching Mulu, we could see a huge area became oil palm plantation & logging site:




Logging road





We could see the border of Brunei & northern Sarawak from the plane. The left side which got green virgin rainforest is Brunei, and the right side which is covered by oil palm trees & small trees of logging site is Sarawak......

But when we reached Mulu, we could see the dense limestone forest....





The Baram river





MasWings is using this new ATR aircraft......





ATR landed at Mulu airport.





...... to be continued.

[kuching]

Gunung Mulu National Park is the most beautiful & the largest NP in Sarawak of Malaysian Borneo. The park contains 3,500 plant species, 8,000 fungi and 20,000 animal species(most of them are insects) !!!


Our hostel in Mulu NP:





The plankwalk....





A hostel




The plankwalk





Our guide, Jenny is briefing us....





The dense rainforest.

[kuching]

There are a lot of rivers in this area....and so many fishes that I never seen before!





The giant tree.




a dry river bed.





A limestone hill.





Mulu's status as a World Heritage site has attracted a lot of tourists to visit this park. Most of them come here to see the spectacular caves. There are a lot of caves in Mulu, but only a few are opened for tourists to visit.


Entrance of lang's cave. It is named after a local guide who showed this cave to the cave explorers in 1977.

[genes]

Goodness. Another eye opener for the concrete jungle dwellers! Michael you should start doing videography or documentaries over your explorations man.

[kuching]

We were not allowed to use the tripod, so I shot all those pictures using external flash & ISO set to 3,200!!!

Lang's cave has a lot of beautiful stalactites, stalagmites and helictites.

















A toad inside the cave.

[kuching]

Goodness. Another eye opener for the concrete jungle dwellers! Michael you should start doing videography or documentaries over your explorations man.

Yup, I did take some short video clips using my Nikon D90.

[kuching]

There are so many plants inside Mulu NP. I was shocked to see Cryptocoryne longicauda (aquatic aroid) growing in the freshwater swamp near the limestone outcrop.





The spathe (flower).





Emersed condition.





Submerged condition.





The habitat.

[kuching]

There are so many type of orchids as well....below is the largest orchid from Borneo: Tiger orchid (Grammatophyllum speciosum).

[kuching]

Deer cave is one of the largest caves in this world. It was very hard to photograph this giant cave without a tripod. The flash light is useless here....so I set my camera ISO to 6400!!!




Deer cave is about 2km long, the cave entrance is 120m high & 175m wide!!!





A natural pond. There are white shrimps swimming in a subterranean stream there...but I don't have macro lens at that time to photograph it.






The rock formation at the cave mouth resembles the profile of Abraham Lincoln.





Deer cave is called Gua Payau by the locals.





The walkway & a bridge.

[kuching]

Deer cave was used to be the largest cave, but after the discovery of a giant cave in Vietnam recently, it became the 2nd largest in the world.

Outside the cave









Subterranean stream.

[kuching]

Part of the giant passage of deer cave had collasped very long time ago & formed a blind valley called "Garden of eden". Behind it is another entrance of a cave called Porcupine Cave (got track made by porcupines).




Earwig is found abundantly in the cave.







Earwig is looking for food in a pile of guano




Coackroach also here.

[kuching]

Around 6pm, millions of Wrinkle-lipped bats (Tadarida plicata) emerged out from the Deer cave in long spiralling streams to hunt for insects at night.





They are forming a circle to wait for the those behind....




After gathering for a while, some of the bats lead the group & flying to one direction outside the cave.




Even they are flying few hundred feet above the ground, we still can hear the whooshing roar of thousands pairs of bats' wings!!!!!





Amazing sight!!!





Bat hawk (not in the picture) will attack the bat flocks, so the unlucky one will become the food of the hawk. Also, a scientific report said a species of hornbill called Anthracoceros malayanus also join the hawk to catch the bats to feed the young one.

[kuching]

Bats are flying out in stream....











YouTube (my video):

YouTube - Bats from deer cave of Mulu (part 2)

YouTube - bats from deer cave

[beetroot]

beautiful pictures, Michael! thanks for sharing.
great job in introducing sarawak/borneo to the world.
i have always wanted to visit sabah & sarawak - so many caves and national parks to explore.
even more itching to go now....

more pictures please, if you have .

[kuching]

beautiful pictures, Michael! thanks for sharing.
great job in introducing sarawak/borneo to the world.
i have always wanted to visit sabah & sarawak - so many caves and national parks to explore.
even more itching to go now....

more pictures please, if you have .

Thanks. I only showed 1/3 of my photos..... will post more soon.