Caving in SE Asia: Merapoh 2012 Nov, Pt 2, K.Rusa & Kalong

6 November 2012

Merapoh 2012 Nov, Pt 2, K.Rusa & Kalong

The first day we went to Gua Tekong. 2nd Nov, day 2 of our 3 day caving exploration we went to Kubang Rusa. This is a small hill.

We walked to the pond, the kubang rusa, where the water presumably comes from a cave with entrance below water level.

We climbed up the hill quite a way but only found one cave. There was a snake skin at the entrance.

The cave was just a single chamber descending steeply with no way on. At least there were some formations and a large nest.

Wonder is these dropped as a result of blasting -

We climbed further up the hill but found nothing. Just an interesting insect, a millipede and a large tree!

This is where we went -

After lunch we went to Bukit Kalong, where in Sept we had explored Gua Kalong. This time we looked at the other side of the hill and found another very nice cave, Gua Sisik Naga. It was similiar to Gua Kelong as it had a lot of the black bands.

There was a large wedged boulder above the entrance. Habli took the first photo of us bravely standing under it!!

Looking up at the boulder

Juki knew the cave as he used to collect guano from here many years ago. Now there are virtually no bats. But we did find Nemo -

Cougar head? -

Thanks to Dr Tony Waltham for telling me these wavy beddings are called stylolites (irregular suture- like boundaries developed along bedding planes). He said the black is probably just impure limestone.

These squiggles reminded me of music -

Looking straight up at a bell hole -

At the end was a lot of religious graffiti, the intention might be good, but it's in the WRONG place.

Habli took these photos -

The chamber is probably about 40 m long. There were lots of bottles scattered throughout the cave, used by the guano collectors for lights.

From here we went back to Gua Tulang to look for more fossils. We found these bovid teeth in Sept -