Merapoh 2012 - pt 6

17 Sept we decided to check out the hills in the Tengku Dato' Sri Intan estate, as these hills are also in danger of being quarried.

The estate is gated so we had to walk in.

The first hill produced no caves.

This looked like an entrance, but wasn't. The next hills we checked produced no caves either. So we gave up and left.

We went to the back of the Gua Goyang hill, which was quite a long drive around, and into another oil palm estate. We parked at a place where cows are fed and tethered, then started to check out the hills.
We found a short passage on the corner of the hill, open to daylight.

One guy climbed up a cliff face using tree roots but the opening did not lead into a cave

We found a cave, Gua Memori Penuh. Only a short cave with and upper and lower passage.

The next cave, Gua Terowong Itik, is a nice tunnel cutting through the corner of the hill.

We named the cave after the silhouette of the duck that Laili saw in the first entrance

The next cave, Gua Bumbung Sompek, is only about 10 m long.

After lunch, we went to the other side of Padang Kawad, the hill where Gua Hari Malaysia is located. With some good 4 wheel driving, we were able to drive right into the entrance of Gua Gajah Marah.

The entrance passage is large enough for caves and elephants - as proved by this elephant dung

The cave has been dug for guano

The lower passage comes at at the bottom of a large chamber, and one wall is 'terraced' with gour pools, making it easy to climb up.

Part way up is a stal that looks like a flying dinosaur

and this is the angry elephant (gajah marah)

A short distance around and up the cliff is Gua Corong.

It is a short rift passage and in a side passage is a tall chimney lined with stal.

There was a lot of conglomerate on the walls and ceiling.

From here we went back to Merapoh and returned to Gua Terowong Felcra.

The final hill of the day was Gua Layang. This is the one close to Merapoh school.

There are 3 caves on the north side.

However we had run out of energy to really explore these caves, although they probably don't go much further than what we saw.

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission