Deer Cave
Deer Cave, also known as Gua Rusa or Gua Payau, is a famous show cave in Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia. It was discovered in 1961 by G. E. Wilford of the British Borneo Geological Survey. The name comes from deer that come to lick salt from rocks near the entrance and shelter there.
The cave is one of the world’s largest passages. Deer Cave itself runs about 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles), with very large sections up to 100–170 meters wide and tall. In 2009, Lang Cave was connected to Deer Cave, expanding the overall system to about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).
Geologically, the cave formed from limestone that dissolved over millions of years due to rainwater, a result of Borneo’s limestone hills and karst landscape.
Access to the park and the cave opened to tourists in the mid-1980s, with Deer Cave tours starting in 1985. Visitors reach the cave via a 3-kilometer wooden walkway through lowland rainforest, passing an ancient Penan burial site.
Getting there: Gunung Mulu National Park is in Sarawak. Flights from Miri to Mulu take about 30 minutes, and the park can also be reached by boat from Marudi with advance bookings.
A major attraction is the cave’s bat population—about 3 million bats from more than 30 species. A Bat Cam system lets visitors observe the nightly bat exodus from an outside viewing area without disturbing the bats.
Deer Cave is part of Gunung Mulu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its caves and karst in a tropical rainforest setting. Nearby is the Garden of Eden, a large circular valley surrounded by tall limestone cliffs.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:46 (CET).