Daily Photo – Gunung Mulu National Park

Gunung Mulu National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park is named for Mount Mulu. Mulu is probably most famous for it’s enormous caves, including the Sarawak Chamber, the largest known natural chamber in the world. Discovered in 1981 it’s estimated at three times the size of the Big Room in the Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, USA – previously thought to be the world’s largest natural cavern. While I’ve visited the Big Room several times, I did not have the opportunity to visit the Sarawak Chamber so I can only try to imagine it’s vast emptiness. One metric used to convey the size of the Sarawak Chamber is that it could hold 40 Boeing 747s without overlapping their wings!

Above ground Gunung Mulu National Park is a network of rivers and trails cut through the rainforest. Today’s photo is one view over the park. On this day, Mount Mulu itself was shrouded in cloud. In the foreground just right of center you can make out a stretch of a river. I can’t speak for now but in 1989, transport was either by longboat on the rivers or by foot. I’ve no particular memory of the hike to the elevation from which I took this photo but it may well have been in preparation for watching the bats stream out of the caves at dusk.

If you’ve seen the bats leave the Congress Bridge in Austin, Texas, I can tell you that is insignificant when compared to the bats leaving Mulu. And If you’ve not seen the bats leave the Congress Bridge in Austin, Texas, and you’re ever in or near Austin, I highly recommend you hang out at dusk for 30 minute to watch.

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