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
had 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 14m pitch with a waterfall. An active
stream is encountered at 70m underground
and it continues the rest of the way.
According to the survey, the vertical
distance of this cave is about 135m.
After the
last pitch, the cave is rather flat with
passages generally heading Southeast. 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 Northeast
before turning east. We had to stop at a
point were there was deep water. Time
was running out. It was about 5pm on our
forth trip to Gua Lo Po Sang and we had
a long way to go just to get out. It was
3am before we reached our car.
Gua
Baba on the other hand is a relatively
flat cave with several flooded chambers.
These chambers were once kept dry by
miners using pumps allowing them to work
the bottom. After these caves were
abandoned, the chambers flooded. Old
wooden walkways were found in some of
these chambers that were built right
across them. It must have been quite
perilous walking on these walkways when
these chambers were dry. Falling off
them would certainly kill a person. We
much prefer to having the water!
Where
the walkways had rotted away, we had to
swim across. Some passages required us
to walk balanced precariously on old
wooden 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 just beyond and 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.
At
about 7 pm 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 9pm. 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 is 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 to 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
buddy 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 that
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 were previously mined
for tin which was found in the alluvium
on the cave floor. These caves were all
abandoned sometime in the 1980s due to
the low tin prices. There are many more
caves in the area and the objective of
our work here is to systematically
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
region. Both Gua Lo Po Sang and Gua Baba
have many side passages that await
exploration.
