Fairy Cave

Fairy Cave sits about thirty metres up a limestone cliff outside Bau and is reached by a concrete stair and a tower built against the rock face, which delivers you into a single enormous chamber - roughly the volume of a cathedral, with openings in the roof and side letting daylight fall in shafts, ferns and figs growing on the floor and walls where the light reaches, and stalagmite columns through it. One formation was read as a Chinese deity and the cave has a small shrine. It is one chamber rather than a system, which is what makes it different from Mulu or Niah: you walk in, the space opens, and that is the whole thing. The cliff outside is one of the main sport climbing crags in Sarawak with several hundred bolted routes. Wind Cave, a river cave with bat colonies, is a few kilometres away.

What you actually see

• One vast daylit chamber - shafts of light through roof and side openings.
• Plants growing inside - ferns and figs where the daylight reaches the floor.
• A cliff-face stairway - the tower and steps up thirty metres to the entrance.
• Climbing routes outside - several hundred bolted lines on the crag.

When to go

All year. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The stair is long and steep and the floor inside is wet and slippery. It is one chamber - an hour covers it. Lighting is daylight only in most of it, so a dull day makes it dim.

Nearby

Wind Cave is a few kilometres away; Bau and Tasik Biru are close.