The first surveys of the Gomantong Caves
The first surveys of the Gomantong Caves were made by Pastor Orolfo in 1930. He was a Filipino senior forest ranger in the employ of the North Borneo Forest Department, operating at Sandakan.
His maps were used with a few modifications by Gerald Edward Wilford in his book The Geology of Sarawak and Sabah Caves (1964). Wilford was a very active field geologist working for the Geological Survey Department of Malaysia. He reproduced the Orolfo maps and added the cross sections. According Wilford the maps have been drawn mainly from compass-pace and compass-tape traverses. Height of the caves passages have been estimated. He also mentions the standard of survey is comparable with grades three or four of the Cave Research Group of Great Britain (Butcher, 1950). Here is the list of the grading system as then used (Butcher, 1950, 1962). It is based on the type of equipment used:
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Grade 1 |
Rough diagram, from memory, not to scale. |
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Grade 2 |
Sketch plan, roughly to scale; no instruments used; directions and distances estimated. |
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Grade 3 |
Rough plan-survey; small pocket compass graduated to ten degrees; lengths by marked cord or by stick of known length. |
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Grade 4 |
Prismatic compass graduated in single degrees (compass error not known); measuring tape or marked cord. |
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Grade 5 |
Calibrated prismatic compass; clinometer; metallic or steel tape; bearings to nearest degree. |
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Grade 6 |
Calibrated prismatic compass and clinometer on tripods, or miner's dial; chain or steel tape. |
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Grade 7 |
Theodolite for bearings and slopes; distances by steel tape or chain or by tacheometry; or by any more accurate method. |
I can only marvel at the work done by these two men. They surveyed the Gomantong Caves in a time when Borneo was still named a "green Hell". Also their equipment was not up to our modern standards and must have been cumbersom and heavy. Now you park your air conditioned car at the visitors centre and after a 5 minute walk on a comfortable boardwalk you enter the cave. Not these guys!
Here is description by Mary Saul (1967) about her trip to the Gomantong Caves in the first part of the 60's.
The first cave I was able to visit were the well-known group at Gomantong on the East Coast of Sabah some twenty miles to the south of Sandakan. Gomantong is an isolated hill of limestone about half-a-mile long and 700 feet high, with a sheer cliff-face, riddled from bottom to top with a vast complex of passages and caves. To reach it one must first make a ten-mile crossing of the Bay from Sandakan. This can be done in an hour or so by speedboat if the weather is favourable but it is a rather chancy procedure because Sandakan Bay is like a small inland sea, a hundred square miles of water with an oulet less than a mile wide. The tide race, plus a tropical storm which can arrive unheralded from a clear blue sky, may make the return journey hazardous if not impossible.
The landing place is a couple of miles up a small river and from there, until recently, one had to continue on foot for some eight miles to the Caves. This part of the trip is now much easier in dry weather as an earth road has been constructed. The earth road winds through timber workings and virgin forest, crossed and re-crossed by the tracks of elephants who seem to like to congregate on the road-track during the cool hours of the night. I was never early enough to catch a glimpse of them though their footprints might still hold water not yet dried out by the sun.
At the end of the track is the wooden shack which is the warehouse and temporary sleeping quarters of the nest collectors, raised on piles and thatched with palm leaf. It is not advisable to sit anywhere except on the ladder-steps because the whole place is hopping with the fleas which inhabit the nests and are inevitably carried in with them.
Behind rises the sheer face of the cliff, silvery limestone gleaming through its veil of forest trees and creepers. The largest cave is at the bottom, only half-a-mile along a damp and narrow path where leeches lie in wait, as I discovered to my cost the first time I went through and had to pull off no less than twenty-seven of them (all but one before they had a good hold!).
My utmost respect!
