7/7 caves, markets, waterfalls and our 2nd night walk

A good night sleep and I was feeling so much better than last night. An early morning walk among the rainforest was a great way to start the day. 

The botany walk was fascinating. This billion open brackets ironwood close brackets tree is believed to have been a thousand years old when it died and as it is not susceptible to termites it is only decaying slowly as a result of the limestone in the air. 

Hamish had hoped to go on the advanced caving expedition, having passed the intermediate stage yesterday but unfortunately the heavy rain last led to the tour being cancelled.

 A short boat ride down the Melanau river to a Penan village market. Having learnt the story of Bruno a Swiss man who got it into his head to go to the other side of the world to live with a people he knew almost nothing about, lived among for more than decade and ended up and som fighting leading their fight against logging, I was excited to meet the people, as well as support their village and find some presents for our grandchildren. 

Then onto Wind and Clearwater caves. 

The cave system at Mulu is 250 km long, making it the eighth largest in the world, so of course we were barely scratching the surface. But what we saw of the beginning of Wind cave was full of beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. For those don't spend our time in caves, there are stalactites (hold on tight) and staligmites (build up your might).