By Liana Zulkifli
GOMBAK, 21 September 2017: “We explored the beauty of the cave by epic crawling, sliding and climbing in three hours.” This was the experience shared by 14 students, mostly from IIUM, who took the challenge in Adventure Tour of Dark Cave recently (16 September morning) at Batu Cave near here.
As students of International Islamic University, it was not an excuse for them not to move out from their comfort zone and try something new beyond their field. Although the cave is large and difficult to climb than they earlier thought, with the high curiosity towards ecosystem and population around there, they managed to complete their journey less than three hours successfully.
“Experience the cave that you can’t get it anywhere,” Nuramirah Albukhary from Kulliyyah of Engineering narrated about the most important lesson she learned from the adventure.
To experience and learn the wilder section of the cave system, they needed to twist and crawl on the rocky way throughout the spelunking adventure with two experienced tour guides.
The super squeeze 30-meter tunnel and sliding down three meters to the ground was among the most difficult hurdle for them.
“Crawling was the most challenging because there should be no turning back once you enter the cave,” Nuramirah said.
Besides that, they also had the opportunity to feel the natural total darkness in the cave when all the headlamps and torch lights were switched off.
With the very informative tour guide, they learned and explored the many biodiversity in the cave, such as the magnificent limestone formation, the cave ecosystem, and the conservation area to preserve the Dark Cave for future generation.
“Never point your torchlight directly to the bats hanging upside down in the cave, otherwise pregnant bats may get miscarriage of their babies because of the light,” Zainal Abid from Kuliyyah of Economic and Management Sciences warned on his experience from the adventure tour.
Zainal knew about Dark Cave during marathon training at Batu Cave stairs, which also gave him a positive view about the natural environment in Malaysia.
“The natural treasures in Malaysia are really amazing for everyone to explore.”
The group leader, who is an adventure lover, Nuramirah, had expressed the following words of encouragement for IIUM students to explore nature.
“Allah’s creations do not have any limitation, just go and explore while you’re still young, and you will definitely be amazed with it.”
Dark Cave is a very unique natural place with fragile environment and rich animal life. Those interested to find out more about Adventure Tour Dark Cave may visit Fb: Dark Cave Malaysia or go directly to Batu Caves for the information. ***
