Sat 27th May
Flight to Mulu this morning, a national park right up near Brunei. A small plane but not as small as i expected, phew! Its funny we had checked in online but she said we had to be moved for even distribution of weight on the plane (!). Turns out we were all at the back 🤷♀️
Amazing flight over the jungle, rivers, greenery, deserted beaches and fabulous clouds. The geography in me was geeking out!
The airport was literally a building where they bring your bags onto a little table. V cool, v remote!
Checked into the national park lodge we are staying in. I’m surprised at how developed it is, our room has air con which is total luxury! We all seem to have our own separate beds, so plenty of space!
Our first trip into the jungle was to see if we could see the bats. Millions of bats fly out of the cave in a beautiful formation. Again, we were expecting leeches and all sorts but they said they aren’t on this walk because its on a slightly raised platform. So its v easy going, even if walking for an hour.
Sadly they are sensitive to rain, and it started raining, so they didn’t come out. Given it is a jungle and rains everyday, usually in the afternoon, I’m not sure we’ll see them at all!
So scootched home in the dark for some laksa (spicy coconut soup) and burgers (guess who ate which dish!) and bed!
Sunday 28th May
Another day, another walk. This was a guided canopy walk which was v cool. Basically walking across rickety bridges 30m in air. What was weird was the guide didn’t tell us anything, he seemed to be zooming ahead. Regardless, it was amazing to see the jungle at a different angle.
After lunch we did the Deer & Lang caves. This NP has a huuuuge cave system, 100s of miles of them, a cavers dream. Saw all of the bats roosting during the day, and smelt their poo! At one point, just hanging out on the railing, was a bright green snake (!).
Ended up where you sit and watch the bats. Which we saw tonight. They were so impressive. 3 million bats come out in huge spirals of about 100,000 at a time. Then they get 15 tonnes of bugs, then make their way back individually to the cave in the morning. They come out like that to confuse the eagles that want to eat them!
It was v busy there!
They look a little bit like a starling murmuration. Check the video at the top which shows them in action.
What was extra brilliant was you can hear the tiny flutter of their wings.
Scootched back home and bed. Walked about 10 miles in the jungle today so very tired bodies!
Mon 29th May
Today’s jungle excursion was via boat to Clearwater cave. Gladly welcome the chance to sit on our bums whilst enjoying the jungle. Clearwater cave has over 200kms of caves. There must be so many cavers who come out here. The highlight was that at the entrance you can swim in the fresh cave water. A huge natural swimming pool. After the 200 odd stairs in the heat, it was in head first all round!
The afternoon was spent home schooling in the ‘discovery centre’ which basically had some summaries of the biodiversity of Borneo, how mountains are formed etc etc…boom!
Evening was a 2 hour night walk which was v cool but we saw A LOT of creepy crawlies – spiders, stick insects, frogs. And some fire ants where if you walk on their territory, start attacking and biting you so you have to run like the wind! We stepped over two nests and T got bitten a few times!! C was freaking out about them but she was fine. All good jungle japes.
Team Mossy on the move 