CLEARWATER CONNECTION – Mulu NP, Sarawak, East Malaysia – 28 September 2024
Apparently, you can’t do the Clearwater Connection adventure cave unless you’ve done a “Moderate” one as it’s an “Advanced” cave. We’d done the moderate cave (Stone Horse) yesterday, and I must have proven that I could handle the advanced cave as I was officially on the list of participants.
When we did Stone Horse, our guide, Chris, said that the next day’s caving (Cave of the Winds and Clearwater Connection) was 8k underground – definitely not a Marilyn friendly cave. So, I checked the ISC program when I got back to my room and it said 4.8k, I double checked with the boss, Hein and he said “yeah, it’s 4.8k”.
Jim and I rocked up to start the cave at 9am and hopped on the long boat for the 20minute trip upstream.
Lots of rapids on the water, was my first experience of the long boat trip, there would be many more over the next week.
There were two guides, Chris and Joe, Jim and another conference participant, JC, so it was just 5 of us a really good ratio. Unloading the boat at the Cave of the Wind jetty, we had to climb about 200 steps, it was at the top that I had the conversation with the guide. .
The start of Cave of the Wind – with an interpretive sign for the tourist to look at.
When we got to the start of the cave with the guide, I think I mentioned something like “oh yeah 4.8k, should be a piece of cake” and Chris said, “No I told you yesterday it was 8k” (he didn’t yell this, he said it in the typical sweet easy going Malay way).
Bugger, what have I gotten myself into? It’s a through trip, it’s not like I can stop and they’ll come and pick me up on the way back! Ah well, too late to pull out now, the boat’s already returned to the Park HQ!
Initially we were on the Show Cave section of Wind Cave, walking on board walk for about 200m, very civilised, but with my anxiety level was off the charts, I hardly took anything in and then we turned off at a locked gate and I was totally focused on walking in the guide’s footsteps!
From here on it was lots of bouldering, I was in survival mode (again), so Jim was taking all the photos (big thanks to you Jim). Note, the photos are all out of order, but you get the picture!
Nice shot of heaps of stals on the ceiling
There were heaps of ropes to use, with this one, you basically leaned back putting all your weight on the rope so your feet didn’t slip.
Nasty “neck” to negotiate, drop off at either side (“concentrate Marilyn!”).
Down climb.
There was actually a long section of this stream passage, nice and flat – probably 100m or so. One of the rare sections I remember LOL.
A two-rope section, across a gaping chasm and then dropping down about 1.5m.
Somewhere, between the above rope sections, there were three “squeezes” (what we’d term as a boulder pile that you had to negotiate your way through), some were easier than others and there were always fixed ropes to help us out. Jim didn’t take any photos of these (pity), funnily enough, the main thing that the guides talk about with this cave – but they were really a piece of cake, although usually at the bottom of the squeeze there was a nasty “dismount”.
This has to be pretty close to the “connection”, that is, where Cave of the Winds joins up with Clearwater. I was probably sitting here waiting for Chris to climb down.
It’s just after lunch and we’re siting here waiting for the others to catch up. This is Clearwater cave, and it’s basically a streamway. The formations you can see in the ceiling are what is left over thousands of years of a stream flooding and eroding the bedrock (I don’t think it’s limestone, probably sandstone). The floor of the cave is sediment and just beyond where we are sitting is the creek/stream (coming in from the right.
I struggled for the whole 6k until we got to the river, it was just so hot and I was sweating the whole time, plus the bouldering was taking its toll. There were a couple of great sections where it was flat passageway, and at least that was a relief.
Clearwater is believed to be one of the world’s largest interconnected cave systems (by volume), and is the 9th largest at 236.796k, we will be walking downstream for 2k.
Initially we walked on the sediment on the edges of the streamway.
Crossing the creek, there were many crossings, sometimes a rope was attached to either side, probably in case the water level went up and people needed to make sure they weren’t swept away by the flow.
The last two k was in and out of the river, sometimes I floated down it, sometimes I stayed with the others and made my way through the boulders beside the river.
We had started around 10am and finished at 3.30pm – the boat was waiting for us at the jetty. The last two kilometers weren’t that bad but I have to say the first two or three were bad. Maybe that was because I was constantly thinking “how am I going to do 8ks?” But by the time we got to 5k it was like “oh yeah, another 3k isn’t that bad”.
We exited the creek at a section of the tourist boardwalk (there’s a give or take 1k of boardwalk at the end of the cave system), apparently it’s too dangerous to go all the way to the exit. Then we walked up about 300 steps and then down about 50 steps and there was our longboat waiting for us at the river/jetty to take us back to Park HQ.
When I finished, all I wanted was a hot shower and to go to bed, but the next day, I looked back on the trip and thought “that was great”, and it was, the passages and chambers were incredible and there was some nice formation. When the other participants in the conference heard that I’d done Clearwater Connection they were impressed, but it seemed they were more impressed that I’d done the squeezes than anything else, go figure!
It was a great trip, I didn’t hurt myself which is always a bonus and given the chance, I’d do it again, without the anxiety!!!
Big thanks to Jim for the photos, and our guides who were really supportive!