Gunung Mulu National Park

I'm back in Miri after a 3 day visit to Gunung Mulu National Park in Mulu. I arrived around 10 AM on Saturday.

Miri Airport

At the park headquarters I was able to sign on with a group going to the Pinnacles the next day. In the afternoon, I visited two caves close to the headquarter's entrance - Deer Cave and Lang's Cave. The walk to the cave was along an easy plank pathway but passed through some nice forest. I saw a pygmy squirrel and some really interesting intsects. Both the caves were really cool, and the entrance to Deer Cave is supposedly the highest in the world. At dusk a bajillion bats streamed out of the caves.

Deer Cave

Our Pinnacles group of 7 (3 Americans, 1 Spaniard, 1 Indian, and 2 Malaysians) left the park headquarters around 9 AM on Sunday. We travelled up river and saw two more caves (Wind and Clearwater) along the way. After the caves, we continued upriver to the trailhead. The river was low so we all had to get out of the boat and push many times. We then hiked 8 km along a flat path through the rainforest to Camp 5, the base for the trek to the Pinnacles.

Monday was the big day. We left Camp 5 around 7 AM and started the slow ascent up the mini-mountain. The path was well marked, but it was mostly up hill and involved a lot of scrambling over tree roots and sharp rocks. After 2 km, the path involved more ladders and metal planks to cover the final 0.4 km. The 2.4 km took us almost 4 hours. The Pinnacles were pretty amazing. I'd post some pictures, but I can't download from my camera to this computer. So therefore I direct you to the magic of google.com. Anyway, after an hour or so of relaxing and lunch some clouds started to roll in and it began to rain. The trek down sucked, and my legs were exhausted. Thankfully the rain stopped after about an hour.

The Pinnacles

Back at camp, I jumped in the river to cool off and clean up. We left Camp 5 this morning around 7, and once again it rained for about half of our trek and for part of the boat ride, which involved slightly less of jumping into the river and pushing through the shallow parts. I had lunch and took a flight to Miri, where I am now. Laundry is at the top of my list of things to do, followed by dinner and beer. Tomorrow I will leave Sarawak, pass through the sultanate of Brunei, and hopefully make it to Labuan by mid-afternoon.