Adventure caving at Stonehorse Cave

I had breakfast at my hostel outside of the park with Gwen (male) and Denis, both from France. Denis is originally from Madagascar. As it was Sunday, the family owning the place was getting ready for church at St Philip’s. They all wore “Askar Allah” t-shirts, meaning Soldier of God, I guess as in the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers”. While I like them maintaining the Christian usage of “Allah” (which is a political issue in Malaysia), I’m not too keen on the soldier bit when used by ANY religion.

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The three of us went to Park HQ to check on whether we could do Racer cave (intermediate). I had been waitlisted for that. They couldn’t open up another trip there but offered Stonehorse (also intermediate) which we were assured was interesting enough with some rope work. I was happy with that, and Gwen and Denis decided to sign up too.

I waited for the couple from KL who had invited me to join them on a trip to Long Langsat. I thought it was courteous to let them know that I couldn’t make it even though I had told them Long Langsat was my “Plan B”.

With Stonehorse in the afternoon, I had some time to kill. I walked to Paku Falls which took about 45 minutes on plankwalk then tracks. The trail continued to Mulu summit, which takes 4 days roundtrip. The falls were insignificant and I didn’t feel like getting wet for a swim. It was purely to fill in time; perhaps it would have been a waste of time if I hadn’t seen a couple of hornbills (one can hear the loud flapping of their wings) and some monkeys. I headed back for lunch.

Getting to Stonehorse took about 40 minutes, largely on the same plankwalk that led to Deer Cave, but we took a flight of stairs up up up before reaching Deer Cave. We encountered a Forest Dragon (brown non-chameleon lizard) on the way. The two French seemed to know a little about the harness, while the two Aussie girls, like me were completely new to it.

We walked into the unmarked and unfenced/ungated and unlit cave.  It started with a walk that wasn’t too different from hiking on any old rocky hill. Then we came across a deep crevasse that wasn’t too wide. Some people could have jumped across it but I probably wouldn’t like to try. This was our introduction to using ropes and carabiners. We were told how to hook ourselves on with two carabiners and how to change over one carabiner at a time when we get to a secured point in the rope (to get to the next section of the rope).

We then had a short steep descend using a knotted rope, whereby we were told to grab just above the knot. It’s simple common sense but with too many new things going on, I probably would have just grabbed anything.

We repeated our rope/carabiner skills on a narrow stone bridge which descended into the abyss on both sides. The headlamps on our helmets couldn’t illuminate the bottom. We then made our way across a ledge using rope/carabiner. All that, when demonstrated by our guide Peter, resulted in horrified OMFG looks on most of our faces. In reality it was all quite easily done. I guess I have no fear of spiders, dark or heights, so it wasn’t a problem. My fear was of falling.

It’s rather funny that one Aussie girl had a bad scrape from falling while doing her washing but she did everything otherwise unscathed. Also funny was Denis who has a thing for creepy crawlies. Whenever Peter explained a new species to us, he would ask “Can I touch it?” Very amusing.

We sat briefly at our turnaround point and turned all our headlamps off to experience the complete darkness. It could not have been any darker as we couldn’t even see our fingers when held in front of our eyes!

Again, I was happy with what I had accomplished today. New and exciting! It certainly beats just plain walking and climbing for 3 days going to the Pinnacles and back. Funny how things work out for the better when plans go wrong!It rained heavily in the evening, delaying Gwen, Denis and myself from going to dinner at the Park HQ. It would be my last meal there and I will kinda miss the food and the social side.

It would also be my last of five nights without aircon. I had coped well with the humidity and felt sufficiently cooled by fan at night. Well, actually at my second accommodation the fan only worked till midnight as the generator runs from 1730 to 0000 only.