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