MULU – 60 MILLION YEARS IN THE MAKING

The magic of Mulu National Park started over 40 million years ago that began deep under the sea.

In 1978, the mystery and magic of Borneo has lured the Royal Geographical Society to launch probably one of the biggest multi- disciplinary expeditions ever to Mulu. The magic caught on and in 2000, Mulu was declared an iconic UNESCO World Heritage Area, at 55,000 hectares, the biggest National Park in Sarawak.

The stories of the sandstone summit of Mulu peak are even older – 60 million years old. The massive limestone formation, formed deep under the sea, was uplifted to form the landscapes of Mulu, eg. the peaks of Api, Benarat and Buddha. The gigantic caves are the reason for the UNESCO Heritage Site!

Gunung Mulu National Park qualifies for all four of the World Heritage criteria. They are Superlative beauty – mountains, combined with huge river systems, a tropical rainforest and huge caves. The earth’s history and geo features are evident in the gigantic caves and the Pinnacles.

The 4 main caves that visitors will be visiting are the Deer and Lang Cave, Wind Cave and Clearwater Caves and then climbing the Pinnacles eventually. We will also be visiting the Penan Settlement and support the community and buy some of their handicraft to support their livelihood.

Lang Cave
Lang Cave is one of the smallest caves in the park. It was named after a guide who led a research expedition in the 1970s. Though small in size, the stalactites and stalagmites are
representative of the very best limestone formations in the Mulu cave system. There’s all sorts of shapes and sizes among the thousands of stalactites / stalagmites.

Deer Cave

The Deer Cave is over 2km long and 174m high . It was the world’s largest cave passage open to the public, until the discovery of another cave in Vietnam . The cave was named by the local Penan and Berawan people as Deer Cave because deer used to shelter within the cave and lick the salt-bearing rocks. The main chamber is 174 meters wide and 122 meters high; natural light still reaches this first cavern, and you also get glimpses of the rainforest outside.

Wind Cave

Wind Cave is named for the cool breezes blowing through it because it is part of the massive Clearwater Cave system. One of the larger chambers within Wind Cave is dubbed King’s Room, with huge columns of stone including stalactites, stalagmites, flowrocks, helitites and rock corals on both the ceiling and the floor.

Clearwater Cave

Clearwater Cave held the title of the longest cave system in Southeast Asia until the late 1980s, with a length of approximately 51km explored between 1978 and 1988. Since then, further expeditions have expanded the total (known) length to 222.09km, making Clearwater the largest interconnected cave system in the world by volume and the 8th longest cave in the world.