Activities Report 1999 July Newsletter
Caving Trip to Gua Kelawar, 16th May 1999
Caving co-ordinator Chang
Kok Kai led a group of 12 members, including a family with two young kids,
to Gua Kelawar in Sungei Siput. Chang had visited this cave only once five
years ago. Hence he had difficulty in locating the site due to the change
in terrain. His identification landmark of a laterite road turning into
a rubber estate had disappeared with the conversion of the rubber estate
into an oil palm estate!
We wanted to explore Gua Alladdin as
well as Gua Kelawar since they are within walking distance of each other.
However, as we tramped through the leech-infested path to Alladin's Cave,
we were sad to learn that it has been destroyed when the area was turned
into a quarry. (The Forty Thieves had robbed us of the cave!)
Gua Kelawar is in a limestone hillock
barely 20 metres in height. The entrance was thickly overgrown with bushes
and a farmer working nearby kindly cleared a path for us with his sickle.
A two metre climb up from the entrance led to a short narrow passage which
opens up into the 8 metre wide main cave with two chambers separated by
a shelf of rock.
The 5-metre long lower chamber has a
large central column and some flowstones adorning one wall. The 10-metre
long upper chamber has all the formations a caver wants to see — curtains,
flowstones, columns, two 3-meter high stalagmites and numerous stalactites.
One of the stalagmites resembled the head of an old man, complete with
a beard. The flowstones, are particularly beautiful as they run down from
the 4-metre high roof to the floor. One of them even had a reflective pool.
One two-metre long formation on the ground looked like a dinosaur! There
are only a few bats here but three false scorpions were seen, two adults
and one juvenile specimen. On the roof of the shelf separating the chambers,
we saw some familiar globular stalactites which are known among the Perak
MNS cavers as "Helentites".
We exited through a large pothole near
the entrance of the main cave, avoiding the need to crawl out through the
narrow passage. The pothole leads to an another chamber with lots of guano
due the large number of Cave fruit bats. More than 15 pairs were seen mating
simultaneously. (The Viagra salesman must have visited this cave earlier!)
Four of us decided to explore a passage
leading to a lower cave. The rest, still fresh and clean, decided to call
it a day. The sinuous passage is low, narrow, wet and muddy with short
sharp formations on the roof and side walls. Most of the time we could
waddle our way in, but several sections require belly crawls. In some tight
spots we had manoeuvre our bodies sideways in order to get through. Two
small chambers enroute allowed us to stand up and stretch a bit. In the
soft mud we could see the fresh tracks of a civet cat. After 30 minutes
we reached the 'Helicite Chamber', height and width about 2 ½ metres,
length 5 metres, tapering to a small opening at the distal end. The adult
civet cat resting there bolted when he saw our lights. This opening must
be connected to the outside as we could feel some wind coming through.
One wall and the roof of this chamber
is festooned with white helicites which are tiny curved or angular twig-like
delicate projections of calcium carbonate with a central canal. They grow
in all directions defying gravity. Some clusters look like miniature staghorn
corals. Their beauty is definitely worth the 2 days of aches and pains
required to recover from the trip!
Note:For more info on 'Helentites',
refer to report on Caving in Paradise Valley, page 3, Nature Newsletter
May-June 1998
(Report by Dr. Chan Ah Lak)
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Created on 30th June 1999