Borneo Adventure 2025

2025 Dates:

7th June 2025

8 Days / 7 Nights

$3,500 Twin Share

click map for larger view

BORNEO ADVENTURE 2025 is a fully escorted 8-day tour that includes a 2-day trek on remote theHeadhunters Trail, destinations in Kuching and Mulu National Park World Heritage area.

Gain a taste of adventure by exploring the stunning reaches of one of the world’s biggest cave systems, adorned with ornate cave decorations and cool clear waters.

Cruise riverways on kayak and longboat, spotting a riot of animal life.

Immerse yourself in the living, pulsing heart of the jungle at Mulu World Heritage area. View the heady spectacle of the almighty bat exodus from Deer Cave.

And experience the heart-warming pleasure of meeting the locals, while you volunteer to help protect this magnificent place and its people.

Tour includes:

Kuching experiences: Semonggoh Wildlife Centre, kayaking, stylish accommodation in a boutique waterfront hotel, welclome and farewell dinners

Mulu National Park experiences: Show cave tour of Deer and Lang Cave, bat exodus, Clearwater Cave, Cave of Winds, Batu Bungan longhouse craft market, night walk, 2-day trek on the headhunters trail

Flights: Kuching-Mulu. Limbang-Kuching

Accommodation: Included

Meals: All breakfasts. All lunches and dinner whilst on excursions and treks. Welcome and farewell dinners in Kuching

Day 1

Arrival and Welcome Dinner

Tour Itinerary

Enjoy a casual stroll city along Kuching’s waterfront and get your bearings on the sights, sounds and aromas of places worthy of a return visit during your stay.

As the sunsets, we'll venture out to explore Kuching and dine in one of Kuching's legendary restaruants.

Did we mention Kuching is one of the only cities in the world that is UNESCO listed for its gastronomical heritage?

Day 2

Semenggoh Wildlife Sanctuary
and River Kayaking

Hanging with Orang-utan, Semonggoh Wildlife Sanctuary

Depart 8am for a full day of Borneo at its best. Kick start the day with a visit to Semenggoh Wildlife Sanctuary to witness orangutans in a relatively natural setting.

Semenggoh was established more than 40 years ago as a rehabilitation center for endangered animals and now has expanded to become a research facility into orangutan biology and behavior, providing vital information to safeguard the orangutans’ precarious future.

Semenggoh also provides a successful breeding environment for orangutans unable to be rehabilitated into the wild.

We’ll have the chance to see the sanctuary’s semi-wild orangutans, ranging from heart-meltingly cute infants and boisterous adolescents to the powerful male adults, as they enjoy life in a secure natural habitat.

From Semenggoh we venture further out of the city to embark on a kayak journey along the Sungai Sarawak Kiri River, stopping at scenic locations for swimming, sightseeing and a traditional longhouse lunch at a Bidayuh Village.

You’ll be amazed at the ambiance, pristine beauty and sense of isolation of this river, only an hour from the State capital.

In the evening we'll dine at Top Spot rooftop seafood market

Day 3

Mulu World Heritage Area

Pack your bags and get ready for the next leg of your journey as we fly into the heart of Borneo and Malaysia’s iconic World Heritage Area, Mulu National Park.

With no road into this area you can expect a pristine wilderness full of all the weird and wonderful things that awarded it UNESCO’s world heritage status in all four criteria.

Find yourself captivated by enchanting underworlds – enormous caves home to great flocks of bats that cloak the sky in darkness as they swirl through the heavens.

Wander through misty rainforest viewing claws of jagged rock and jungle-cloaked mountain peaks through breaks in the jungle canopy. Admire the riot of wildlife – from the tiny pigmy squirrel, to some of the largest insects on Earth.

See exquisite orchids emerge from the dense leaf litter cloaking the jungle floor. Fall under the spell of this pulsing, breathing, living utopia.

Check in to your room and regroup before our afternoon/evening tour to Deer Cave and the bat exodus.

Take an easy 2.7 km trail to Lang and Deer Caves. As you saunter through the rainforest and by jungle steams your guide will regal you with captivating stories of the plants and wildlife you encounter, and the traditional roles and customs for people who live in the jungle.

Lang Cave is possibly the most stunning cave in Mulu with a low ceiling that makes spotting the swiftlet and bats nesting in the bell-holes easy.

It is adorned with lavishly decorated walls of shawls, layers of rim stone pools and spectacular stalagmites and stalactites.

Not far away is the jaw-dropping Deer Cave. With a cathedral-like cavern snaking two kilometres under the earth and a ceiling never lower than 90m high, Deer Cave is the biggest show-cave in the world.

Its cavernous reaches are also home to around three million wrinkle-lipped bats that emerge from the cave most evenings around sunset.

We time our walk to witness the phenomenon of these bats streaming from the cave entrance – a stand-out scene in David Attenborough’s Planet Earth series. Watching the bats swirl through the sky in meandering rivers of black is a truly heart-stopping experience.

From within the cave you can also visit the ‘Garden Of Eden’, one of the most pristine collapsed cave systems in the world. Witness its dazzling beauty by peering through a 30-metre column of water streaming from above, like a giant shower for the jungle gods.

Day 4

Visit a local longhouse handicraft market on the way to Clearwater Cave and a relaxing picnic at Clearwater Cave

We leave the park by longboat at 9.30am and travel up river stopping at Batu Bungan Craft Market. Here you can test your skills with a blowpipe, pick up some local crafts direct from the women who collect and weave the products or try your hand (or should we say nose!), with a Penan nose flute.

As we journey further up the river and out from under the forest canopy you’ll start to see the breathtaking beauty from a different perspective.

Any boat ride on these rivers is like a meditation in nature and this one is no exception.

You can’t help but feel alive, relaxed and complete as Mother Nature soothes your very soul with her beauty.

Next we travel through an intriguing underworld of cave passages, formed over two million years to create a winding network of tunnels snaking 220 kilometres under the earth.

First, we visit the Cave of Wind to enter the lavishly decorated halls of King Chamber, adorned with stalactites, stalagmites, flowrocks, helitites and rock corals.

From here we set out on a meandering boardwalk perched precariously along the cliffs to Clearwater Cave Picnic Area were we recharge with a light snack and refreshment before venturing through the ancient underground river passage of Clearwater Cave.

Free afternoon

Your accommodation is perched under forest canopy and embraced by a series of self-guided walks trails through the rainforest.

You may choose to walk, rest or swim. Here’s your chance to breathe out, ahhhh, you’re here, among one of the world’s most treasured natural environments.

7pm-9pm night-walk

In the evening we regroup for a leisurely night walk on the walk trails around camp headquarters. This two-hour guided tour will give you an insight into nocturnal jungle life.

Immerse yourself in the sounds of the rainforest, interpret the cacophony of jungle noises, watch the courtship dance of the firefly, search for luminescent fungi and scorpion and perhaps spot an elusive marsupial or two.

Day 5

Headhunters Trail_ Part I

BorneoEthical Adventures MAy2019 - 250 of 323.jpg

Spend the morning at your leisure. You may choose to offer more time to volunteer, take some downtime or sign up for a canopy skywalk.

Lunch-time departure for Camp 5.

Our last few days at Mulu allow you to journey even further into the remote heart of Borneo as we travel by longboat and remote trails along the historical Headhunters Trail of Borneo.

Averaging less than 200 visitors per year, the Headhunters Trail weaves through a pristine wilderness teeming with animals such as the samba deer, Borneo’s argus pheasant, a variety of monkeys and bird life including the rhinoceros hornbill.

Porters can be pre-booked to carry your backpack (up to 20kg) on request. Luggage can be sent from Mulu to Limbang by plane (cost approx. $60) 10km trek to Camp 5, at the Pinnacles.

Heading up river along the magnificent limestone cliffs of the Melinau formation, it’s time to prepare for our next adventure and the beginning of the Headhunters Trail.

We set off through flat jungle terrain on a 10km trek to Camp 5, the camp most popular for travellers embarking on the gruelling climb to the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles comprise a series of 45m high towers of limestone that piece through the jungle canopy in craggy towers of rock. Camp 5 is nestled at the base of the Pinnacles and alongside the dazzlingly clear waters of the Melinau River. Cool off with a dip under a nearby waterfall or chill out riverside before dinner.

As Camp 5 houses up to 38 fellow travellers, most of whom are climbing the Pinnacles, it’s not unusual for late arrivals and early morning departures. We’ll sleep on basic mats in rooms allocated to 10 people per room.

Day 6

Headhunters Trail Part II

We start the day early with a seven-kilometre trek enroute to Mentawai Rangers Station. You’ll watch the vegetation change as we emerge from the darkness of the jungle and enter the heath-like kerangas forest where our longboats await.

Relax in the longboat and watch the forest skyline for your last sightings of hornbills and monkeys, or scan the riverbank for sun-baking water monitors.

It'll be late in the day when we leave the river and transfer to a vehicle for the last journey of the day.

The night is spent in the sleepy little town of Limbang where you'll be reunited with your luggage (if you sent anything belongs overland by air freight) from Mulu)

Day 7

Fly to Kuching

Faye Acraro_RAjah Brookes Butterfly.jpeg

Explore Limbang bustling waterfront markets before our flight back to Kuching

We hope that your final days trekking and travelling provide the perfect opportunity to reflect on your journey, your connection to the people, wildlife and lands of Sarawak and to solidify the friendships of the like-minded travellers drawn to Borneo Ethical Adventures.

Together we will have enjoyed travel experiences that enrich mind, body and soul, both for travellers and those whose paths we cross.

In the evening we'll enjoy a farewell dinner and last uniquely Kuching culinary experience together.

We look forward to sharing this world with you.

Day 8

End of Tour