From our house at Mulu we could look across the Gorge formed by the Boli River and see an enormous cave. We could rider there from Mulu, but it took a long time.
We used to leave early in the morning and ride Westwards first crossing the Bomfata stream and then on at the foot of a small escarpment right over to the Boli river which we had to cross. It was always too flooded in the rainy season.
It had to be a dry weather journey. We would ride over the Boli river which was a very rough crossing full of large rocks and up the other side we climbed quite steeply and left our horses on the ridge above the cave which was before the bump (a rocky outcrop.) We would then scramble down rather carefully because if you slipped you could fall several thousand feet to your death.
We entered the cave carefully. It was enormous, down into a salty type of rock. The local farmers use to come into the cave and dig out lumps of the rock to take to their cattle as mineral lick. We would take up smaller lumps to let the horses lick it.
The cave also had small seems of coal or charcoal in bedded in it, which we also tried to dig out and take away to burn. It was hard to dig so we never managed to get much out.
Then we would have to ride home again and get back in the evening rather exhausted. I seem to remember that my brother Stephen and I once climbed right up to the cave from the Boli river at the base of the gorge. It was absolutely exhausting so we must have had to have scrambled up 2,000 feet. Another year much later on we tried to get to the foot of the Boli falls but it was too steep and dangerous, so we only got to the foot of the lower falls.