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| Gunung
Mulu National Park |
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| Much of
the Gunung
Mulu National Park, which lies along
the Sarawak - Brunei border, was unexplored
until the Royal
Geographic Society and the Sarawak government
surveyed it in the late 1970s. The park
was not even opened to the public until
1985. Some of the best examples of tropical
limestone weathering (karst)
in the world can be seen here including
enormous razor-sharp pinnacles, deep-cut
canyons, and awesome caverns that are home
to millions of bats and cave swiftlets (Collocallia
sp., genus Aerodramus sometimes used). These
caves include the world's largest underground
chamber, Sarawak
Chamber in Lubang Nasib Bagus, capable
of holding 40 Boeing 747 aircraft; the world's
biggest
cave passage, Gua Payau (Deer
Cave), which can fit five cathedrals
the size of Saint Paul's in London; and
the longest cave in Southeast Asia, Gua
Air Jernih (Clearwater
Cave). These huge caverns form in the
limestone bedrock because fractures in the
rock are widely spaced, the limestone is
strong, and the torrential rainfall, nearly
20 feet per year, carries away dissolved
carbonate and insoluble sediment. Anywhere
else and these huge caverns would collapse.
The diversity of life in Mulu
is truly incredible—17
vegetation zones from lowland dipterocarp
to upper montane forest. There are 3,500
vascular plant species including 1,500
flowering plant species, 10 Nepenthes species
(carnivorous pitcher plants), 111
palm species in 20
genera, and 170 orchid species; 81
mammal species including 28
bat species, 12
in Deer Cave; 76
amphibian species; 270
bird species including eight hornbill species;
48
fish species; and 20,000
invertebrate species with 281
species of butterflies and 458
ant species. |
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| There
are almost no roads inland in northern Sarawak
and the rivers serve as a highway system.
The trip from Miri to Gunung Mulu National
Park involves a 23 km ride to Kuala Baram
at the mouth of the Batang Baram (Baram
River) and a 2-1/2-hour express boat ride
up the Baram to Marudi. At a riverside stall
in Marudi, Marie picked up formal white
gloves for each of us to wear in Deer Cave,
which gets quite dirty. Don't ask me why
formal gloves were on sale at a stall in
the middle of the Borneo rainforest. At
Marudi, we also became acquainted with the
local restroom facilities, essentially a
hole in the floor over which you squat,
where raw sewage flows into the river. No
TP or washbasin is provided, but some restroom
facilities have an overhead shower. Traveling
in Southeast Asia is not for the squeamish.
Leaving Marudi, we took a 3-hour express
boat ride up the Tutoh River, a tributary
of the Baram, to Kuala Apoh. We transferred
to longboats with outboard motors for the
2½-hour trip to Long Terawan, the Melinau
River, and the Mulu Guest House at the edge
of the park. The heaviest rainfall in Sarawak
is during the northeast
monsoon from late December to early February. We traveled
during the southwest
monsoon (late May to September), when
conditions are drier and water levels are
lower. At times, we pushed the boats upstream
reminiscent of scenes from 'The African
Queen' (1951). |
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