Bugs & Bats

lantern bug
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We took a flight straight out of Miri to Gunung Mulu National Park a UNESCO world heritage site. The park is famous for some of the largest limestone cave systems in the world (yes we found ourselves drawn to caves again).

On a first day we visited ‘Clearwater Cave’ which measures some 107km and ‘Wind Cave’ named because of the cool breezes that can be felt down the narrow passages. We took a longtail boat to the caves stopping off at a longhouse en route. After the caves we took a rest at the fresh water pools that you can swim in, where we got to watch the swarms of butterflies, in particular the Raja Brooke Bird Wing Butterfly with its huge bright green wings. After lunch we set off for our next cave visits ‘Deer Cave’ (world's largest cave passage) and ‘Langs Cave’. On the way to the caves our guide kept pointing out some weird and wonderful insects. Deer Cave passage is jaw dropping it’s so immense and is home to numerous species of bats, which all hang above you, as you walk through the cave, the guano smell is horrific. At around 5pm everyone makes there way to the viewing platform to watch the amazing exodus of millions of bats leaving the cave in search of food. We weren’t successful on our first night, this was the second night the bats hadn’t come out to feed but we came back on our second and last night and watched the most spectacular sight of at least 10 swarms of bats leaving the cave spiraling around like serpents across the skies.

pill millipede
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We also booked onto the Mulu canopy skywalk, which is the longest tree based walkway in the world. Halfway around we heard something below us and Gav managed to catch a glimpse of the back end of a either a bear cat or civet, which apparently is pretty rare sight to see. We really enjoyed our stay at Mulu there was so much to see and do and it was the first place to wet our appetite for more wildlife.