That was a dark night - and I'm not talking about Batman

Niah Caves

Lately the gloomy weather has been leading to some very dark nights. It’s not normally a problem if I wake up in the night – given that our house is mainly glass I can generally see very well. Enough to know there are no monsters under the bed and enough to see my way around without disturbing Rob or standing on a cat. Not so at the moment
– dense swathes of cloud are currently drowning out any remnant of star and moon and denying me the comfort of checking that no-one is standing at the end of the bed (I still haven’t shaken the remake of Cape Fear from my memory and I swear I will never watch it again).

            No matter how dark it is however, if you hang around long enough, you will start to make out shapes. Eventually (if you eat enough carrots) your eyes make out everything and you forget you thought it was dark, soon you can pour a drink without needing to put the tip of your thumb in the top to prevent spillage (I learnt that from my Grandad).

            Which got me to thinking about the time we visited Niah Caves in Borneo; if you’re ever nearby I strongly recommend that you visit. Here’s what you’ll see. The pathway to the caves meanders through dense rainforest (it was there that we discovered the Humbugus, but that’s another story) where the tree roots are big enough to hide in. After strolling for around 45 minutes, listening to the sounds of monkeys, hornbills (their wings sound rather like giant wood saws – those big two-handed monsters operated by two men that you only ever see in children’s picture books) and marvelling at the myriad array of insects, you appear at the mouth of the caves.

The entrance is huge but this isn’t the really breath-taking sight – no, what will take your breath away are the dozens of poles inside. Long, thin pieces of bamboo that span from floor to roof – if you time it right you’ll be there when a man is shimmying up and down, collecting birds’ nests to sell to people with more money than sense.

            The caves themselves are of great historical importance as they include cave paintings and a burial site, one skull found in the caves has been dated to 40,000 years old.

            Visiting the caves is an adventure, you’ll need a torch as they are not lit, but these can be rented from the ticket office. There are no guides or proper pathways, you just pick your way through the guano and stone. Aside from the interesting formations at the mouths of the caves and the cave paintings the real adventure is the prospect of absolute dark. If you’re brave enough.

            The caves bend and twist about and are very long and deep. So much so that at the halfway point (if you can have a halfway in such a warren) there is absolutely no chance of daylight entering the cave (or your eyes). When you’re young and impressionable this is the point where you turn off your torch.

            And it really is dark.

            And silent.

            And then you actually feel the dark and hear the dark because it is very, very black.

            And your eyes do not adjust.

            And then you switch your torch back on. And that’s when you think that maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea – given that you only rented one torch, and it looks well used, and you don’t have any spare bulbs or batteries. You treat your torch with a lot of respect after that.