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Activities Report 1999 July Newsletter

The Connection of Lo Po Sang and Baba 
     At precisely 11:05 pm Friday 16 April 1999, Gua Baba and Gua Lo Po Sang was formally con-nected, resulting in a system of about 2.9 km long. This system was named the Wang Mu Stream-way. The connecting passages were surveyed to 223 m and during the same trip, another 233 m of passage was surveyed south from Lo Po Sang. The total surveyed length of this system now stands at 2,934m. These are caves found in the Perlis State Park.
      Gua Baba was previously surveyed to about 1.4 km long while Gua Lo Po Sang to a little over 1 km. Having taken their entrance position with the help of a handheld GPS unit, we were able to place their location precisely on a map and noted that their passages come to about 150 metres from each other. A connection was certainly possible. Both are known to connect as ex-tin miners would tell usduring conversations with them.
      The entrance to Gua Lo Po Sang is located in the hills after a tough 2 hour uphill trek. The first part of the cave is practically vertical. Several pitches got to be negotiated. Old wooden ladders, remnants of the mining days are still found on some pitches. They proved useful, for every pitch with a ladder still in good condition means one less rope to haul and rig. Where the ladders have rotted away, ropes were used to descend. The longest of these pitches is a 14 m pitch with a waterfall. An active stream is encountered at 70 m underground and it continues the rest of the way. According to the survey, the vertical distance of this cave is about 135 m.
      After the last pitch, the cave is rather flat with passages generally heading south-east. It later joins another passage with passages going north-south. The stream at this point flows north. Passages were found to have developed along the strike and joints generally heading north-east before turning east. We had to stop at a point where there was deep water. Time was running out. It was about 5 pm on our forth trip to Gua Lo Po Sang and we had a long way to go just to get out. It was 3 am before we reached our car.
      Gua Baba on the other hand is a relatively flat cave with several flooded chambers. Old wooden walkway were found in some of these chambers built right across them. Where the walkways had rotted away, we had to swim across. Some passages required us to walk balanced precariously on old wooded beams which we hope wouldn’t break under our weight. Some did! A beautiful stream passage with short waterfalls was encountered next. Here a dry higher level bypass was found — a useful passage should the stream rise in flood. The stream passage continues till a place called "long bridge". Here, another wooden walkway was built across larger and longer flooded chambers. A steel gate was found and just beyond, our exploration stopped. We were out of time, we were tired and cold and didn’t relish getting wet again swimming through another flooded passage.
      On 16 April 1999, we entered Gua Baba determined to connect Gua Lo Po Sang and Gua Baba. We arrived at the "gate" near the last point of our survey at about 9 pm. We continued our survey in the water half swimming and half clambering over rickety wooden beams. We came to a point where we could neither swim due to debris in the water nor could we walk on the old rotten walkway. We practically crawled over what was left of the walkway. Finally we arrived on solid ground near a junction. The right passage with a stream was small and didn’t seem to be a major passage so we elected to take the left passage although we knew that this passage was heading the wrong way if it were to connect to Lo Po Sang. We were hoping it would start turning west soon.
      The passage continued south and we were rather pleased to see that the main passage did start to head west. We were more excited when we noticed the passage taking the character of the passage at the last point of our survey in Gua Lo Po Sang. There was an old wooden walkway above deep water. At this point, I saw several features beyond which looks exactly like what I remembered from Gua Lo Po Sang. I shouted for joy but my partner wasn’t as sure as I was. He thought I was going crazy. We surveyed hurriedly and I scrambled still balancing on the wooden beam till I got to solid ground again. I rushed forward and on the left was, as I expected, a flowstone with a calcited ladder which confirmed we were already in Lo Po Sang. The celebration started! Drinks were out. The cold water from our drinking bottle was as good as champagne! The raisins tasted like caviar! We had chocolates and muesli bars to top it up. 
      The caves of the area was previously mined for tin. Now they are all abandoned due to the low tin prices. There are many more caves in the area and the objective of our work here is to properly explore and survey the caves for a better understanding of the mining history and to uncover what we suspect is the longest cave system in Peninsular Malaysia and among the longest in this region.
Hymeir Kamarudin (Vice Chairman, MNS Kedah Branch - [email protected])

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Created on 30th June 1999