Day 74: Mulu day 3

We actually got to sleep in today, which was a bonus, though it turns out we slept right through our first appointment of the day! To make a medium story really short, the guy checking us in told us we were to do the canopy walk at 10am, though the schedule we had emailed to them said 8:30am. In our very non pushy way, we got what we wanted and chased down the 10am group walking out to the canopy walk.

Two months ago, Beth would have been up for, let's say a couple of hours (AKA several sleepless nights) thinking of the canopy walk - 500 meters of ropeway suspended up to 40 meters above the ground, spanning tree to tree through the upper canopy of the jungle. Now? She's bloody high fiving me when she finished! Abby called it Versluis Courage.... Maybe.

The canopy walk was great. Two by two we would make our way across the bridge sections to one of the 16 platforms. It was a great alternate perspective to see the canopy from this high.

There was a great graphic at one of the platforms detailing the story of the rainforest - showing how and why there are really different tree heights. The "emergent" trees (the ones that stick high out of the jungle canopy) don't seem to have anything in common - there's no real explanation for why they are freaks of nature, towering over their counterparts. Different species and even different ages of trees can be emergent, it's a matter of becoming the "one"... That simple explanation of the rainforest and which tree will be the "one" is actually more complicated and most definitely more interesting than the Divergent Book series, so you're welcome if you haven't wasted the time it takes to read them.

Check out the two-family shot in front of about one third of a trunk of this massive tree....

The kids were in their own world as usual on the way back, not noticing me taking this video documenting them breaking the "silence in the jungle" rule....

We got back in time to eat once again.... We are thoroughly enjoying the food here. It's perhaps the best food we've had in the last month or so. The kids are loving it too, though we can't know that for sure, as they refuse to sit with us! Ah the side effects of independence...

We signed up for our last trek in Mulu for the 2pm Fast Lane Trek (I really didn't remember any of the details of these treks as Alex and I had planned it so long ago, but so far we have given each other many pats on the back!). We took the same boats up river again, stopping at a jetty virtually hidden by the forest at the side of the river.

Our guide, another local girl who had a nomad father and Irish mother spoke with the cutest lilting Irish accent. It seemed a little out of place, but was a pleasant surprise.

Our final cave of the trip was a journey to the center of the earth. This one was way different than all of the other caves we'd been through. The Fast Lane is a 1km, dark cave that cuts right through the limestone mountains and joins up with another cave that runs a further 500 meters until we reached the end. We saw quite a bit of wildlife - small cave birds, lots of bats, spiders, white cave crabs and other small insects. The cave itself really gave you the impression of how it was formed by a swiftly flowing river all of those years ago. It really felt like we were descending slowly down into an asteroid unknowingly along the body of a giant space worm (as the kids would say, "what up Star Wars reference").

At one point we passed though a stalagmite and stalactite "forest" which was pretty cool.

We emerged from the cave unscathed! It felt like a pretty long walk and we couldn't really fathom that we'd just walked a kilometre and a half underground throughout a twenty million year old cave. Long cave bucket list item.... Check! :-)

The boat ride back was beautiful, as we've come to expect. The kids sequestered themselves in one of our rooms and had a "party" (thank god they're 11,12,12 and 13) while the adults made a beeline to the cantina in the hopes of completing another item on our bucket list...

......Building a Tiger tower.... Check!

When we got to the cantina after a quick shower, the kids were focused on a game of French fry poker - too funny. Apparently Matt was the big winner of the night!

Our time here at Mulu is not over, but Beth and I both agreed that this is one of our best experiences to date (you'll recall, this is an oft repeated phrase.... Kind of like the president of the IOC saying "this Olympic Games has been the best.... Ever", but it IS an indication of a positive experience for sure!). Hanging out with the Versly has been great, and getting to experience this really cool....

[hang on.... Quintana has a 1:30 gap on Froome with 1.4km to go in the penultimate stage.... Or so says my FRUSTRATINGLY slow $?!/@ing wifi connection feeding me small text updates from CyclingNews.com.... Ok, I'm ok now]

[hang on again.... There is a very raucous karaoke session going on across the river. I can't tell if it's tourists or locals, but it's really bad, which makes it quite funny... But a little distracting...]

This experience at Mulu National Park has been really amazing. Period. Froome takes the TdF and now I can head to bed. G'night!