Our third day began early, heading to the 25-metre high canopy walk, starting off our trek at 7:00am. The canopy walk has a minimum age of 6 and above, so the rest of the little ones (including baby Rumaysa) had to stay back in their rooms.
At 420m in length, one of the longest tree based canopy walks in the world, the Mulu Canopy was is quite the construction and engineering marvel.
You can just feel the impressive planning and execution work, with meticulous careful route planning required to lay solid pathways and cables across the strong, tall trees, without usage of heavy cranes and big machinery in the protected forest of a world heritage area. A breathtaking experience through a couple of river crossings, with a beautiful epic view overlooking the massive mountainous cave formation at the background.
11,000 steps later, we then headed off to our well-earned breakfast, before gearing up for one of the most thrilling adventures of the trip: Long Langsat Riverwalk.
After a 1-hour boat ride, we parked just by the river mouth, before the main attraction of the Riverwalk: where we trekked for about 40 minutes upstream of the rapid flowing river, going as deep as 1 meter before reaching the waterfall at the end. It was a challenging walk, especially for the 6-year old little dudes, and even for me, trying to find solid footing on the rocky surfaces with baby Rumaysa on our baby carrier.
Frankly, the waterfall at the end wasn't anything particularly spectacular, but as my buddy and fellow dad Syafiq said: "frankly, I couldn't care less about the waterfall. It was all about the experience of exposing these kids to the challenge of the river walk. Bagi diorg lasak sikit".
And it's really quite satisfying to witness these little fellas tackle new challenges and push themselves outside of their comfort zones. And therein lies an interesting leadership & Parenting observation: Because they had peer pressure through the presence of their friends ("hey, even the girls are walking by themselves and they aren't complaining!") and adult supports for safety, the kids (including 6yo Muawiyah) could muster enough courage and resilience to push through, and in the end they did really well, with zero tantrums, breakdowns or incidents by the end of the 4-hour adventure. That's a parenting win in my books! 🎖️
Before heading back, our group mates requested the boatmen to show us around his hometown, Long Iman - one of the longhouse villages along the river.
Overall, though a little pricey (costing between RM4k for the four of us for a 3 nights stay, flying from Miri), Alhamdulillah our Mulu trip was a nice experience with lots of variety - from caving, trekking, riverwalk, canopy walk - and was a blast to experience with groups of friends with their families.
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