It rained heavily most of the night, and it was still drizzling when we walked to breakfast. There are boardwalks to get around to the chalets and restaurant because when it rains like we had the ground gets flooded a couple feet deep. Luckily the 2 million bats keep the mosquitos under control, what with all the stagnant water.
The sun was poking through as our group met at the park office at 9am to start today's trek through Racer Cave. The caves at Mulu Park are categorized as Show Caves or Adventure Caves. The Show Caves were the ones we had done the past two days, and are fully boardwalked and have illuminated pathways inside the caves. The Adventure Caves require prior caving experience or membership in a recognized spelunking organization. Racer Cave (named after the Racer Snakes in the cave) is the only cave that you can do if you don't have prior experience.
We picked our helmets (with attached lights) and then the 7 of us took the 15 minute boat ride to the cave entrance. The other 5 had just completed the 3 day Pinnacle trek so they all knew each other.
The Racer Cave started with a rope-assisted climb up a 15' wall; then a rope-assisted 30' descent straight down; and then squeezing sideways through a very narrow passage in the rock. There were a few more ups and downs using ropes, and other places where we were sliding on our bums because the ground was so slippery. We got very dirty. Occasionally I was able to rinse my hands in the water falling in the cave.
There were no lights inside the cave like in the Show Caves, just the lights from our headlights. Our guide had us turn off our lights briefly after we entered the cave, just to experience the total darkness. We could hear a couple bats flying around us - they sounded louder in complete darkness. By this time we had become used to bats and so neither of us were freaked out.
We saw spiders as big as my hand, crickets with 15cm attenae, swiftlets, bats, and one racer snake.
The 2km walk (1km in, 1km out) took us almost three hours. The cave was as interesting as yesterday's Fast Lane, but we hardly noticed the rock formations because we had to watch where we were walking. When I did stop to look around it looked almost fake - as if someone had taken a bunch of big rocks and arranged them in a warehouse and turned off the lights.
Overall it was a really cool experience. The Show Caves are cool too because you can look around as you walk; but the Adventure Caves really are an adventure.
We arrived back at park headquarters and showered. All of our clothes and shoes were filthy too.
Rushed though lunch because we had the canopy walk booked at 2pm. There's a lot of places that now have canopy walks. The one at Mulu Park is supposedly the longest in the world at 480m. We liked the one at Danum Valley better - it was sturdier, and offered a better chance to see wildlife.
Back at headquarters we had the afternoon to relax, and so hung out in the restaurant from 4pm till 9pm. Luckily we got there early as it poured rain again from 5pm to 8pm. Also lucky we had seen the bat exodus our first day in because it rained the past two days at sunset when the bats come out.
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