Wind Cave Nature Reserve

Wind Cave takes its name from the steady draught blowing through it, produced by the passages connecting to different openings, and it is a river cave rather than a chamber: the Sungai Sarawak Kanan runs alongside and partly through the limestone, and boardwalks lead through a series of linked passages that are genuinely dark in places, so a torch matters. The colonies are the reason to come at dusk - bats in numbers and swiftlets whose nests were harvested here historically, both leaving and returning in a stream at the mouth. The reserve is small, the walk is easy and takes under an hour, and it pairs naturally with Fairy Cave a few kilometres away, which is the opposite kind of cave in the same hills. Outside there is a picnic area on the river.

What you actually see

• A draught through the passages - the moving air that named the cave.
• Boardwalk passages - linked and genuinely dark in stretches.
• Bat and swiftlet colonies - streaming out at dusk from the openings.
• The river outside - the Sarawak Kanan with a picnic area on its bank.

When to go

All year; dusk for the bat flight. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Lighting is minimal - bring a torch. Boardwalks are wet and slippery and the smell of guano is strong. It is short, under an hour. Flooding closes it after heavy rain.

Nearby

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