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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