The Show Caves in Mulu Caves

Part of the Mulu Caves travel guide — see every topic in All Mulu Caves Guides.

Mulu's four so-called show caves are the accessible core of the park: Deer Cave and Lang Cave on one side, Clearwater Cave and Wind Cave on the other, all with boardwalks, lighting and guided tours, and all reachable from park headquarters in a half day each. They are not small. Deer Cave's main passage is over a hundred metres wide and high for much of its length, which puts it among the largest cave passages anywhere, and walking down it is closer to being in a cathedral than in a cave.

Deer Cave and Lang Cave

Reached by a three-kilometre boardwalk through rainforest from park headquarters, taking about forty-five minutes. Lang Cave is the smaller of the pair and holds the best formations in the park — stalactites, columns and flowstone, well lit. Deer Cave next door is the opposite: enormous, dark, largely formation-free, and dominated by an immense passage with a mountain of guano on the floor and a colony of millions of wrinkle-lipped bats overhead. At the far end, a shaft of daylight through a collapse produces the profile locals call Abraham Lincoln.

Clearwater and Wind Cave

Reached by longboat up the Melinau river, usually with a stop at a Penan craft market and at the Wind Cave first, which has good formations in a chamber called the King's Room and takes its name from the draught blowing through it. Clearwater Cave beyond is part of one of the longest cave systems in the world, with an underground river running through it; the boardwalk follows the water, and there is a swimming spot at the entrance where the river emerges cold and clear. Both are done together as a half day.

How the tours work

All four are visited on guided tours booked through the park, generally in a group with a park guide, at set times. Deer and Lang are usually an afternoon tour that ends at the bat observatory for the exodus; Clearwater and Wind are a morning tour with the boat. Fees are modest and are charged per cave or as a package. Tours book out in the peak season, so reserve when you book your flights — this is the single most common Mulu planning failure.

Practicalities

Boardwalks are wet and slippery and the caves are humid; shoes with grip matter. Torches are useful in the darker sections even though the caves are lit. It rains a great deal in Mulu and the boardwalk to Deer Cave is exposed in places. Bat guano is everywhere in Deer Cave and the smell of ammonia is strong — it is unpleasant rather than dangerous. Photography is allowed but tripods are impractical in a moving group, so a fast lens and a high ISO are the realistic approach.

The Show Caves at a glance

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