Volume 52(2)

SUSS BULL 52 (2)JULY – SEPTEMBER 2013

Bulletin of the Sydney University Speleological Society

SUSS Bull 52 (2)

News and Gossip 1

Cave Diving in River Cave - Aug 3-4 2013 2

What’s in the Purple Bag? 4

Long Weekend Wellington, 5-7 October 2013 5

Camooweal 2013, 23 June -7 July 8

Jenolan October 2013 23

To the caves 25

Picture Gallery 26

Things to Buy 29

Trip list: Dec 2013 to Feb 2014 30

Cover Photo: Jack, Denis and Steve hauling 200kg of dive gear at midnight, CamoowealDeborah Johnston

c� 2013 Sydney University Speleological Society http://suss.caves.org.au

PO Box 3318, Redfern NSW 2016

NEWS AND GOSSIP

They said that?“Hey Man, you’ve Mardi-gras’ed your pants”

In this BullI know you have been waiting eagerly for the Camooweal trip report, including the diving on that trip, and here it is.In fact this Bull could be considered a diving special. The majority of the articles are diving related.I am sure you are looking forward to a continuation of the Mammoth maps and description; the next update shouldbe in the next Bull in early 2014.

First AidThe red cross has released a free, first aid, tablet app. This is not a replacement for a proper first aid course, butworth getting.http://www.redcross.org.au/first-aid-app.aspx

In the NewsSee Frederick Wilson, former curator of Jenolan, cave in 3D!(I can’t legally reproduce the image here, but you can view it online)http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemLarge.aspx?itemID=202138A New Beautiful Translucent Snail from the Deepest Cave in CroatiaSee what is inside a snail shell!http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130910104946.htmEarly dive trip reports from Jenolanpg 1 - http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/3698021?zoomLevel=1pg 2 - http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/3698692?zoomLevel=1Other- http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1082616?zoomLevel=3

Project ProgressJenolan taggingIn recent months SUSS has tagged two more cave entrances in Jenolan Southern Karst:J344 at the south west side of a bluff, 20m up from Camp Creek and North of J291,J345 at the north west side of the same bluff as J344.Jenolan dive surveyThis is progressing well and Deborah has documenting the details which can be found later in this Bull.WombeyanWork is continuing on documenting and mapping caves around the tourist precinct. Vortex Cave is being sized upfor a gate, and connections to nearby caves are being pursued.Most recently, connection to the closest tourist system appears unlikely, however, connection to other caves is notruled out.

Lost and foundAn earring was found in the base of Puncbowl pitch, Wee Jasper. If you lost one contact us to get it returned.

Helpful Hint number 413The weather is warming up, the canyons are beckoning, and the snakes are getting active. When you see a snakein the wild, consider things from their perspective. They like to eat small animals; things bigger than them are athreat. They do not want to eat you, but they are most keen for you to go away. Just as you would chase an intruderout of your house, so does the snake. If an intruder hits you with a stick, or kicks you you would retaliate. So woulda snake.So when you see a snake while walking to a cave or a canyon, walk quietly away, maybe stopping to take a photo.Don’t poke him, throw rocks at him or attempt to kill him. This is how most snakebite fatalities occur.If someone threw a rock at me I might be keen to bite them!

SUSS Bull 52 (2) JULY – SEPTEMBER 2013 Page 1

http://www.redcross.org.au/first-aid-app.aspx

http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemLarge.aspx?itemID=202138

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130910104946.htm

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/3698021?zoomLevel=1



CAVE DIVING IN RIVER CAVE - AUG 3-4 2013

BY DEBORAH JOHNSTON

Participants: Rod Obrien, Rick Grundy, Keir Vaughan-Taylor, Michael Collins, Deborah Johnston, William Slee,Tony Le, Demi KlachosThis Saturday was an unlucky day for the SUSS cave diver regulars. Greg Ryan was away with a badly injured calfmuscle, Keir was on strict order not to dive with an ear infection, and Rod Obrien was languishing through horribledive withdrawals after a particularly persistent head cold.Luckily, resident guide Michael Collins had a rare Saturday off, and had just had two of his tanks returned fromtest. Also Rick Grundy, an experience cave diver, had been convinced to return to Jenolan, to try jumping in thewater to wash away two mildly traumatic dry caving trips he had endured there in the past. Phil Maynard was alsocoaxed into packing his dive gear for the trip, but it remained in the boot of his car as he was promptly stolen awayby another group for some important Mammoth surveying business.Rick was arriving Saturday morning so had been given a late arrival time to compensate for the inevitable pre–divepfaffing that occurs at the hut. When he arrived on time, he found a large group of eager cavers very happy to seehim. . . well not him exactly. . . more like the big pile of SUSS ropes and ladders he had picked up on the way after anotorious member did his traditional last minute trip pull–out! The other cavers quickly snatched up the variousbits of gear before flocking down to do Mammoth, Serpentine and Hennings.Keir and Rod had a hole to check on the Southern Limestone, but promised to return at lunchtime to help the rest ofus with the dive gear. As they trudged up the valley, the rest of us descended on the Southern tourist caves.Michael is a resident guide at Jenolan and keen explorer, particularly interested in discovering more sectionsof the underground river. When we heard he had some hot leads to check in the tourist caves, Rick, Will and Iquickly volunteered to lend a hand. We were well rewarded as we entered via Lucas cave, with Michael pointing outinteresting features and historical notes along the way to the River Styx, where we left the tourist track througha small hole in the wall to search for new pathways to water and determine their potential for diving and futureexploration. Guide Ted Matthews had described one such hole which we quickly found, but unfortunately it wasnot human size. The other section which had high promise was watery holes contained none. Nearby, I found anexcellently decorated aven which had unfortunately sustained serious damage from careless visitors in the past.Much of this damage looks very old with new crystal growing over muddied sections.After returning to the path Michael pointed out some rubbish in the pools (including his own name badge which hadbeen dropped) and we exited via Baal in time to meet the others for a quick lunch and regroup with the addition ofKeir and Rod, but loss of Will who decided walking the area was a smarter option than carrying tanks. Down to fivewe were considering carrying in two peoples gear instead of three (a difference of 6 bags versus 9) . . . but Rod told usto harden up and carry two bags each.

Deborah and Rick gear up, Pool of Cerberus, Jenolan.Photo by Rod Obrien

By about 2pm we were down in the Mud Tunnelswhere a short climb and ladder takes you to a drysection of overflow of upstream and downstreamLethe. Rick is an experienced cave diver but thiswas his first trip to Jenolan so it was decided thatwe would do a familiarization trip before launchinginto the survey project. Rick went first and lookedat home in the 13◦ water, taking off both tanks andslipping down the restriction. I had been throughthis section a few times now so felt comfortable try-ing it with one tank on, and to my surprise I gotdown rather easily. I followed and we soon passed ahorribly gnarly section and popped out into largerpassage with crystal clear water. We headed upthe passage towards the first airchamber beforeturning back and finding Michael on the way whoinsisted he’d been down the restriction with bothtanks on no problems despite our universal skep-ticism! Rick discovered that he had an excellentvideo of the first section of the dive, right up untilhis camera had flooded!


Rick and I then made our way over the short gravel bank and into the water on the other side to head in the otherdirection. We reached a section where most people take both tanks on and I attempted to show off to Rick by wigglingthrough feet-first with one tank on. He then slipped through easily with BOTH tanks still attached! We then quicklyreached the section at 20m depth where a large, tight gravel slope starts. I had previously chickened out here andexpected that we’d be turning around, but Rick plunged up the slope wiggling and willing his way through to theother side. I followed out in complete blackout putting all my energy into willing that the 20yr old line was in goodcondition as I couldn’t make a visual check. We then pressed on through the aptly named “long, low, flat, horriblething” with Rick leading the way through crystal clear waters, and me groping and grasping in the murk behind.

Rick emerges from Pool of Cerberus, Jenolan.Photo by Rod Obrien

My comfort level was being damaged by a few sec-tions I had noticed where I would like to replacedodgy looking section of the old line at rub points,but then being unable to do so as the water quicklyturned to murk. Luckily, I knew that we were sureto pop out the other side with the arrows (whichface the fastest way out) having changed directionto point our way, and the depth gradually reduc-ing. Sure enough we popped out at twin bridgeswhere I quickly suggested the option of walkingback instead of diving. This was to be absolutely noproblem for us as we had been in this section of thetourist caves just a couple of hours earlier so it wasjust a few minutes walk back to our companions.OR SO WE THOUGHT! The remarkable part of ourmisadventure was how when faced with 7 branchesto choose from, we selected 6 wrong before finally

walking the right way. This was all done with our restrictive suits and heavy tanks still on, so by the time we finallyfound our way back I was feeling pretty stuffed with wildly protesting calf muscles. The others were relieved to seeus as they had been expecting us back a little sooner based on our air supply going in. Happily, we were able toleave two bags of gear by the sump as we would be reusing it here again the next day. For an added boost on the wayout we encountered another SUSS guide Tina Willmore who told her tour group how incredibly wonderful we allwere as they took our photos.On Sunday, Rick, Rod and I lost Michael to work and Keir to the Southern limestone, but we gained a new memberDemi, a newish member Tony, and the triumphant return of William Slee. The group of 5 entered the cave viaOrient which seems even more beautiful when you are going through in the downhill direction (as opposed to havingjust puffed up all the stairs with dive gear coming back out). We made our way down to the Pool of Cerberus whichis currently closed to tours as they are replacing the lighting. We took advantage of this closure to hop in thepools and remove the rubbish that had accumulated, and retrieve Michael’s guiding name badge. As we geared upthe group admired the efforts of the petite Demi who carried a gear bag that I believe she could fit inside herself.

Rick swims under the twin bridges removing rubbish.Photo by Demi Klachos

We also admired the extreme patience of Rick whogeared up reasonably calmly despite an incessantbarrage of niggly gear questions from Tony. Wethen strapped on a gopro video camera and begandiving upstream where we first encountered a totalbitch of a gravel constriction which we struggledthrough, leaving our group behind in a flurry ofkicking and splashing. Just beyond this gravelbank we found some very old dive torches (believedto have been lost by legendary diver Paul Boler inthe early 1990s), and a straw broom which Rickrode back out into the open pool to our unappre-ciative audience. We then swam back over to thetwin bridges where we had exited the day before,and made our way upstream filming the long, low,horrible flat thing (which is a lot less horrible andlong when you can see). We emerged at the mudtunnels just 12minutes later with our tanks stillvery full, but there was a mutiny to call it a day andget home at a reasonable time so we then packedup and exited.


WHAT’S IN THE PURPLE BAG?

BY SAFETY OFFICER – TINA WILMORE

First aid kits have been discussed in an earlier BULL. I have finally completed three kits which are for use on anySUSS sanctioned trip.

If SUSSlings have forgotten to bring their personal first aid kit(there is a hint here), these kits can be taken as back up.When gear for a trip is being collected, please take the first aidkits as well.How many first aid kits do we need? Hopefully none. Butkeep in mind how many groups you may have on each trip.At Jenolan, we break into small groups day tripping (no punintended) into caves.

A FIRST AID KIT NEEDS TO BE WITH EACH GROUP!The kits are in a waterproof bag with the internal contents in ziplock bags. I anticipate the bags will protect thecontents well with a bit of care.The kits have an assortment of gear.

• Various crepe bandages,• Gauze pads to cover wounds,• Tape for securing pads,• A triangular bandage,• A thermal blanket,• Protective gloves,• Saline for rinsing wounds or dirt from eyes,• Ibuprofen, paracetamol and ZepAllergy (Claratyne) tablets,• Splinter probes and steri-strips, band-aids,• Note pad and pen,• Scissors.

I would like to add a large elastic bandage to thekits - useful in the event of a snake bite. If you thinkof something we should have in the kits, please letme know.If you use anything used from the kits, I need toknow so it can be replaced.Happy and safe caving!


LONG WEEKEND WELLINGTON, 5-7 OCTOBER 2013

BY IAN COOPER & PHIL MAYNARD

Participants: Tabitha Blair, Harrison Burkitt, Ian Cooper, Deborah Johnston, Phil Maynard, Rob Obrien, AlanPyrke, Greg Ryan, Keir Vaughan-TaylorA long weekend is the ideal time to venture west to Wellington for cave diving and some exploration. Following aresome notes on the areas looked at.Cathedral CaveRod dived the sump at the end of Cathedral on Sunday night. In the past this dive has been considered difficult dueto a squeeze at the base of the visible lake. When the cave was surveyed during drought Kier was able to removesome rocks from out of the squeeze. Rod sailed through the squeeze and surveyed all of the sump that he could see.The first chamber past the squeeze contains numerous old bottles and waste timber on the floor. Rod also reportedan air bell towards the end of the dive but his gauge showed a depth of 6m. No other leads were spotted.WE5 Mitchell CaveKeir and Phil concentrated placing two bolts over the second pitch to produce a free hanging rig that is free of theloose dirt above the pitch. The bolts are on the opposite wall of the second shaft as you approach the pit – the onlyavailable bedrock. The alternative bolt placements were all bone breccia! More slope stabilisation was carried outbelow the second pitch. Combined with the new pitch rigging, this slope should have less soil movement from nowon. The north trending rift at the base of the cave was dug out until Deborah struck water and created a new mudpuddle sump.WE7This is a small cave between Mitchell and Cathedral. Ian had another look at this low wide cave which appears tobe a large earth filled room with a 0.5m gap to the roof. We probably need to survey this cave to see how closely itapproaches the upper parts of Cathedral.W14 LimekilnRod, Deborah, Phil, Keir and Greg all dived the sump in Limekiln. The water level was higher than average andthis stopped dry access to Bondi Beach. Rod pushed at the south end and found an extra 8m of passage.WE20Ian and Alan had close and dusty look at the rift at the bottom of this cave. The bottom of the cave is a 0.5m widerift full to the roof with soft dusty soil and some old wire.WE22Alan and Harry found the drafting rift lead in the base of this cave. Alan noticed a wider part below some jammedrocks but did not get past the bedrock restriction.WE24Ian and Harry cleared rocks and logs away from the top of WE24 and descended the shaft. This shaft, (just behindthe kiosk), has been dug as an exploration shaft at the time of the phosphate mine. The shaft is about 7m deep withan earth wall to the west and solid rock to the east. The shaft has been back filled by at least 2m with broken rockas evidenced by the visible gap down the east wall. There is negligible chance of cave being found off this shaft.WE25 Bottlo CaveThere was another look at Bottlo Cave. This cave is just behind the kiosk and is a shaft that was back filled. Acouple of large boulders had been bought down previously to make the area safe. Ian, Greg and Deborah removed arock and opened out the rift at the base. The dig remains prospective with fill still present at the deepest visiblepoint.


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CAMOOWEAL 2013, 23 JUNE -7 JULY

BY DEBORAH JOHNSTON (with additions by Alison Chau)

Participants: (in order of appearance) Deborah Johnston, Rod OBrien, Steven Kennedy, Paul Hosie (CEGWA?),Denis Stojanovic, Jack Wachsmann, Alison Chau, Natalie Brennan.MIDNIGHT SWIMS IN LIGHTNING RIDGEAfter a nice leisurely start from Rod’s place in Toronto (Lake Macquarie) on Friday morning, Steve, Rod and I hitthe road for a clean 9hr run, reaching Lightning Ridge just in time for dinner. After grabbing some pizza in town,we headed to the Artesian Bore Baths which have been concreted into a public pool with steps, an amenities block,and 24hrs lighting. At the source the water bubbles out at 46 degrees in sulfurous belches, while the rest of the poolis around 40-42 degrees with hot mist giving it a spooky atmosphere. What a great place to soak with a cold beer!After soaking for as long as we could handle, we camped for the night ready for an early start.CENTRAL WEST QLD, WHERE ONLY TOURISTS DRIVE AT NIGHTThe next day we made it all the way to Longreach, zooming through a little town called Winton without stopping.We had made it about 80km out of town before we got the suicidal kangaroo that had hid in the bushes waiting forthe perfect timing to launch out. Rod spotted him immediately and was hard on the brakes, but we were still goingabout 80km/hr when we hit the big bastard. We drove a bit further before checking the damage and seeing that thefan and radiator were toast. Before we could move entirely off the road a 53m long road train came barrelling overthe crest and we all moved as far away as possible in case he hit the trailer. To our surprise, the road train pulledover a short distance down the road (well not that short. . . takes them a long while to stop!) and came over to offerus a hand! He and Rod popped the bonnet and spoke fluent mechanic for a while before we moved the car further offthe road, grabbed beer and jackets, then hitched a ride in the road train to the Blue Heeler pub (established in 1889)in Kynuna to call the RACQ.

Critter, Niggle Cave, Camooweal.Photo by Paul Hosie

Dave, the truckie, was a friendly and handsome 30yrold country bloke who had been driving trucks since hewas 17, and driven his first road train at 18. He made astriking impression hitting about 6’3 with black skinnyjeans and a well-worn leather jacket. The roof of the truckhad at least 30 of those cardboard air-fresheners danglingtogether in a hypnotic rhythm. The boys jumped in hissleeper cab and I rode up front to learn more about Daveand his many travels, his 3 young daughters that love thetrucks and help him out whenever they get the chance,about the town Winton we’d just passed through and itsmany attractions including where to get a good feed. I’msure there was much more interesting things said, butover the roar of the truck I was surprised to have heardthat much.Dave dropped us at the Blue Heeler pub in Kynuna about11pm and Rod grabbed him a few cans of Bundy as herushed off to hit the road again to drive until 5am. Therewas no Telstra reception in Kynuna but the staff wereused to handing over their landline to the many touristssuffering similar fates driving through the region at night,something none of the locals will do unless absolutelynecessary.Kynuna pub was going off! They had the music blaring,and the punters and staff partying hard! The walls werecovered in historic memorabilia, including evidence thatthe local Combo watering hole was where Banjo Patter-son penned Waltzing Matilda, with his first public perfor-mance being in that very pub. As the story goes, BanjoPatterson, a Sydney lawyer, brokered a truce betweenthe striking shearers and the opposition they’d been bat-tling for several years nearby, thus ending the last armed

conflict between Australians as they gathered to drink together and sing instead of shoot.


Out the back they had many single units, but unfortunately the main reason the pub was jumping was because alarge group of road workers had booked the place out to take advantage of their Sunday day off. Shit. We organiseda tow for the next morning, donned our jackets, and enjoyed some beers out the front waiting for traffic to pass by tohitch a lift, but we were too late! There was to be no more traffic until the next morning. With the temperaturedropping, and last drinks called, everyone (staff and punters) moved out the back to party on with their takeaways.We joined them for another beer and got offered the bare empty room they have out the back which is where thestaff lay their swags if they need to crash the night. As luck would have it, one of the staff was mates with thestation owners outside Camooweal and lent me her swag for the night, and even rounded up the road-gang to gothrough their rooms and bring out all the spare blankets and pillows they could rustle up. One of the truck driversbunking there for the night had spent years working roo shooting contacts around Camooweal and could not believeit was full of caves! Luck struck again as one of the guys had drunkenly backed his truck into the door of a unitwhich was now broken open, so he’d moved into a double with his friend, leaving an extra mattress for us in a room.After the second naked old trucker streaked through the yard we decided it was time to crash and settled in forabout 5hrs sleep which is about 5hr.WINTON, YOU BLOODY BEAUTIES!The next morning we spied what HAD to be our lift, a big truck with ‘Rodney’s Transportation Service’ down theside. We sent Rod over to claim his transportation service as advertised but the guy was going north, the oppositedirection of our destination. After a few more attempts we ended up riding with a heavy haulage couple who weretaking a 4m wide bulldozer down to Emerald, with me up front in the heavy vehicle warning truck with the ladywho seemed to love having a woman to talk to, and the boys riding in the truck behind giggling about secret mens’business over the radio ever now and then.When we reached Rod’s ute, the tow truck driver was already there getting things ready and the lady wasdisappointed that he promised to squeeze us all in with him (as she was looking forward to a bit more girltalk by giving me a lift all the way into town). We squeezed into the tow truck with the friendly driver who alsoran the local mechanics. On the way back he pointed out some secret camping and fishing spots, and let us knowhow Winton was becoming a surprisingly popular destination for film-makers, not so surprising when admiring thelandscape. Being a Sunday, we could only decide what parts to order in when business resumed on Monday, thenwait until Tuesday for the parts to arrive and get put in. After a bit more quality bush yarning, the mechanic loanedus his red Hilux dual-cab with “Winton Devils 2010 – you bloody beauties!’ on the back window, and after checkinginto the comfortable Outback Motel, we headed off to start seeing the sites.

Rod in the Octopus Tree, Bladensburg.Photo by Deborah Johnston


We saw the best dinosaur bone preparation centre in the southern hemisphere and learned how some of the mostcomplete skeletons had been found in surrounding farmland, alongside many preserved dinosaur footprints includingthe world’s only recorded stampede print collection. We tried all the coffee shops, and perused the collections ofopals, fossils and minerals they’d pulled from the surrounding area. We visiting the ‘musical fence’ (my favourite!)and historic truck and machinery museum (Rods favourite!) and spent hours exploring the nearby BladensburgNational park which was full of history, including the shearers strike camp of 1891-93 which led to the AustralianLabor party formation, and a couple of refreshing (or was that freezing!) rock holes for a swim.We met Arno in the opal shop he ran, then later went past his place in town which is impossible to miss due toArno’s fence which is built of concrete with a bit of everything else you can think off added, war helmets, gnomes,typewriters, wheels. . . you name it! By day two we’d discovered that our towie/ mechanic was also the very well-respected town mayor, and son of the previous mayor! That explained why everyone was so friendly it seems, as wehad been cruising around in the mayor’s ute calling WINTON DEVILS! YOU BLOODY BEAUUUUUTIES fromtime to time.Steve and Rod even got to enjoy a kilo of big king prawns in the sun over a coffee from the bakery cafe after spyingthe big seafood truck from Townsville that was passing through town.Everyone shook their heads when they heard we’d been driving there at night, and we heard about some lessfortunate travelers including the motorcyclist who was attacked by an emu, totalling his bike and breaking and armand ankle – and the American tourists in a teeny hire car that hit a full size Brahman bull and survived. Therewas also a group of four French backpackers that had not been warned about wicked camper vans before theirunfortunate hire choice in Darwin. They were settling in for at least a week in Winton, living in the mechanics carpark. Unfortunately with the four of them we couldn’t take them on our excursions around the region and being flatbroke they didn’t join us on our several rowdy pub nights at the Tatts (a great place for a drink and a feed – theyeven serve Tooheys Old for Rod and Coopers green and red for me and Steve! Bliss!), where we met even more of thesuper friendly locals. We even ran into Dave the truckie again and, sorry to all the ladies, but he is taken, havingfallen in love with the pub’s barmaid and moving to Winton to drive local trucks. In fact, the only negative thing tobe said about Winton was that all the good tourist t-shirts were only made in kids sizes, and I promised to admitthat on one particularly delicate morning (after a few too many beers in the pub the night before) the aroma of theartesian water in the hot shower overcame my steely resolve.As we planned out a busy day four in Winton, fossicking for opals and visiting two town museums we hadn’t made itto yet, we were almost sad to find out that the car was all fixed and it was time to go.

Rod, gearing up, Camooweal.Photo by Deborah Johnston

WINTON TO CAMOOWEAL VIA MT ISAHitting the road from Winton that afternoon, we made it back tothe Blue Heeler pub in Kynuna just after sunset to enjoy a tastypub dinner and hit the sack, cringing at the uninitiated caravansdriving past at night. We set off again at dawn, looking at the freshroad kill and big termite mounds that had been converted intocrazy scarecrows along the highway, before brekkie in Cloncurryand then doing a big shop in Mt Isa. Steve had already unpackedhis pre-prepared dehydrated camp food, and his eyes boggled whenhe saw the full cart Rod and I wheeled out! I could see that hewas thinking there was NO WAY we could finish it all, but I knewbetter – after all, the divers need plenty of fuel to lug their steeltanks through these caves!I spied a bloke in a big hat dancing and raving through the car parkon his own. . . but didn’t have time to confirm it was Bob Katterhimself before packing up the ute with food to head out of town.We made a quick stop at the Thirsty Camel attached to a club tostock up on booze but then as we waited at another register, Rodand I saw Steve get refused service as he wasn’t a member of a clubwhich was their requirement for selling booze. Rod and I quicklypulled out a few cards, including my trusty SUSS membership cardwhich changed the topic to cave exploration.The lady behind the till was captivated with our heroic stories andthen said to Rod and me with a wink “good thing you’re Paul’s sisterand brother-in-law eh. . . ” and then to Steve “oh, and that you’rehis errr nephew. . . ” before ringing up our orders, but only after wepromised to try and check back in on the way home to update heron our discoveries!


CAMOOWEAL CAVE EXPLORATIONDay 1 - Ticking off Flatteners (and Finding New Caves)We arrived in Camooweal just after lunch (a full 6 days after setting out) and then headed down to the Billabongcamp ground in the Camooweal Caves National Park, complete with one black swan, two tourists, and about 40 cows.Steve quickly set up his little Macpac tent then kicked rocks around for the next 3hrs as Rod stomped around settingup the rest of his supercamp complete with giant tent, fridge, esky, gas cooker, table, benches, chairs, chainsaw,eight dive tanks, two huge oxygen cylinders, a generator, and charging station. Once supercamp was complete, wejumped in the car and set off for our first target, an area identified through aerial images as being a 100m wide2m deep doline. We trundled through the bush and were thoroughly unimpressed to find the dry bed of what is asmall lake in wet season. Undeterred we explored the dry streamways nearby and found one section with warm airescaping through cracked mossy rock which we labelled as ‘a dig for the truly desperate’. We then found a 6m deepdoline which takes water from two creeks, and poked down into a 4x3x3 chamber with some tough but diggableleads blowing more of the distinctive hot air. Meanwhile, back up in the doline, Steve wiggled his way about 2mdown a tight flattener and was rewarded with a surprising view as he looked over the edge down a wide 7m pitch! Isquished down the flattener to take a look myself, sceptical that it was a joke to cram us in the tight passage, butsaw that it was indeed a nice looking pitch that we could come back to explore.Day 2 - Ticking off Wallows (and how not to rig)The next day we set off to tick off the southern-most leads identified from aerial images, two ‘dolines’ which wereactually shallow mud wallows (completely dry this time of year) and another which someone thought was a streamflowing into a pile of rocks, which was a small natural billabong (also dry, and completely devoid of limestone). Wetrudged for another half an hour through the countryside with our heavy packs (optimistically filled with rigginggear, overalls, tools and a SRT kit) to get back to the car, and head off for a far more promising lead nearby whichhad been labelled as having ‘openable leads’. We reached the GPS position for this location fairly quickly but theonly thing close to it was a pile of rocks with zero airflow, and zero openable leads.

Steven Kennedy in a new cave, Camooweal.Photo by Rod Obrien

We exchanged raised eyebrows then spread out to investigatethe wider area where we found a much better looking dolinenearby which looked like it should be a winner but again withno airflow and nothing that would be openable without an ex-plosion! Steve had better luck nearby where he found a streamsink with hot air pumping from two sections of rockpile andmud. We contemplated this dig, and realising that it would bedays of work we labelled it as such and moved on. This lead isnear one of the larger caves in the area, but far enough awaythat it is definitely heading into something new.We then returned to the pitch found the day before and shovedintrepid Steve down it. It was a solid effort for him to get downthe flattener and over the edge with his gear on, and even moreof a challenge to get back out again, which makes it even more ofa shame that there was nothing at the bottom! Rod negotiatedthe flattener but was unable to look over the edge due to thetightest bit being just a bit smaller than his chest. . . so maybea good thing it wasn’t a goer after all? With a few hours leftbefore sunset we drove over to a spot near the campgroundwhere tourists gawk down the impressive entrances of GreatNowranie and Little Nowranie. These dolines are about 50mapart and the surveyed passage pass reasonably close to eachother, but despite extensive efforts for decades, the two had notbeen connected. Our plan for the afternoon was to rig LittleNowranie so it was set up to put one diver in the sump at thebottom the next day to look for possible leads. As we approachedthe doline the three of us entered the fabled SUSS realm of‘maximum pfaff factor’ and somehow spent two hours riggingjust the 25m entrance pitch before retreating to camp in thefading light to enjoy some beers and stargazing on another warm evening, interrupted only by the many feral cats.Day 3 - Little Nowranie BreakthroughOn day four we packed Rod’s diving gear and then headed back to Little Nowranie, making our way down to thewater in good time with much more efficient rigging (leaving the pfaff factor at the entrance). By the time wereached the large clear sump at the bottom we were all completely soaked in sweat from the 29 degree heat and100% humidity, and puffing even at rest with the slightly elevated CO2. We got the dive line and tanks ready while


poor Rod struggled into his 5mm wetsuit creating huge clouds of steam, and noted the huge mud slope just beforethe water. We hoped it would be shallow and not disturb the water clarity too much, but Rod sunk in well pasthis knees having to lurch forward in a giant bellyflop before swimming ahead furiously trying to stay ahead of thesilt. He swam down the right hand wall following the mud slope down to 27m depth before the avalanche of mudenveloped him in a total blackout. Rod is a commercial diver at home in the most horrible of conditions, so he justknelt on the bottom and slowly felt his way along the wall with his hands in the complete darkness, eventuallyfinding a lip with a small opening underneath.He wiggled through the opening into a passage then was surprised to pop his head up through the mud layer intowater with about 6m visibility in a reasonably large passage. He checked his air, found a good tie off for the diveline, then followed the passage about 40m through to a T-junction in a reasonable size passage. As he sat therecontemplating whether to go left or right, he looked around for a good tie off then noticed some of his old diveline down on the gravel bed, coated in an algae growth. Success! This was Great Nowranie and he had made theconnection people had been attempting for decades! Returning for a triumphant round of high 5s, we all floated inthe refreshing pool of water for as long as possible, noting hundreds of tiny white cave prawns sharing the sump,before making our way back up the cave with just Rod’s tanks to refill, leaving the rigging and the rest of the divegear in place.

Rod Obrien rigging in Common Cave.Photo by Deborah Johnston

Day 4 - Common CaveThe triumphant trio; me, Steve and Rod, set out to Com-mon Cave (aka Canellan, next to Danes Four Cave) foran exploratory dive in the sump below. I had heard thatlocals make their way down to the water for swims usingrope ladders so was looking forward to a cruisy day.It was a great little cave with nice pitches, each with somescary looking rotten Bunnings rope strewn in places. Rodhad visited many years earlier and remembered seeingthe very rudimentary rope ladders that the locals hadbeen using, something that Steve and I struggled to vi-sualise as we spent ages rigging re-directions to avoidsome very nasty rub-points on the razor sharp rock edges.Everything was going smoothly until we reached the low-est section of the cave where we endured a 40m crawlthrough some outrageously sloppy, horrible elbow deepmud.Reaching the sump, we were horrified to see that it wasabout the size of a bathtub, and completely choked withbacteria and putrid scunge, with a stench to match itslooks. We spent a very, very long time attempting toachieve a seal on one of the regulators that had become toomuddy and then, thinking happy thoughts, Rod geared upand plunged into the pool racing to stay ahead of the siltwhile Steve and I struggled to suppress our gagging aswe retched from the stench of the disturbed water. Rod re-turned a short while later and confirmed that it was a goerwith a small low passage tending downwards, with thefeeling that it would pop into something larger. . . bootyfor future intrepid divers to scoop!We lugged the gear back through the muddy hell thenpassed the gear back up to the base of the last pitch. Each pack had at least 2kg of thick, gluggy mud hitching aride, and at one stage we counted packs realising that one had been left a short way back in the cave, completelycamouflaged in the mud. Steve ascended the pitch with no troubles, with Rod next only to find that the coating ofmud was causing his croll and basic to slip, needing about six goes to catch for each move. After hauling the gear up,the rope was completely coated in thick mud and I spent a solid 30 minutes ascending just 15metres arriving at thetop almost totally exhausting and wishing (for the first and hopefully last time) that I had prussik loops instead ofmechanical ascenders!After exiting the cave near sunset we made our way into town for a well-earned shower and some beers and dinnerin the pub where we also enjoyed some outrageous local stories about the caves.Day 5 - Windy, Spirally, Whirly Leads (before Reinforcements Arrive)Steve, Rod and I headed out to clock up some more kilometres of bushwalking as we checked some promising leads in


the bush (Wind Trap, Spiral Sink and Whirlpool) but despite our best efforts, we were not rewarded with any leads,let alone new caves. Later that day the rest of the gang arrived with Paul Hosie reaching camp at midday after hismonster drive from Perth, and Alison Chau, Jack Waschmann, Denis Stojanovic and Natalie Brennan arriving intheir two car convoy from Sydney late in the evening, setting up camp and crashing for some much needed sleep.Jack had been adamant at the start of the drive up that they would be able to drive through the night, taking Google’s29 hour estimation in one hit by rotating drivers. Thankfully, he soon agreed that this would be a less than ideal wayto arrive, and we made our way up in a more leisurely, yet still gruelling, fashion, camping on the first night nearDubbo, and the next near Longreach. Their trip was not as action-packed as Deb, Rod and Steve’s, but there wasstill time for Alison to figuratively genuflect at Glenn McGrath’s statue in Narromine and Jack and Denis to have aromantic midnight riverside stroll. Highlights included: overtaking an oversize police-escorted bull-dozer scoop andvehicle which took up both lanes; Nat discovering the little luxuries of driving Alison’s Forester long-distance, such ascruise control, and the well-positioned arm and foot rests; and the boys entertaining both vehicles over their two-wayradios with such edifying comments as “emu!” (Denis), “kangaroo!” (Jack), “the road’s not straight!” (Jack) and “Weshould get Jack a colouring book. . . ” (Denis).Day 6 – Pants OptionalIn the morning; Jack, Denis, Rod and Steve all raced down Little Nowranie to recover Rod’s dive gear and de-rig thefirst pitch to discourage overly-adventurous tourists. When they returned the group congregated for a pow-wowoutlining our plan for the next few days, with Rod commanding attention in his outfit of speedos, knee pads, hikingboots, and a singlet just long enough to make nudity ambiguous (having ditched his wet shorts for the drive back tocamp after a swim in the sump).

Back to nature, Camooweal.Photo by Deborah Johnston

We then split into two groups, with Alison, Jack and Steve heading to MarcusMice with Hosie to help him with gear to extend the known dive; and me,Rod, Denis and Natalie heading to nearby Five O’Clock cave to do the firstever dive of its sump. We first went into an obvious high entrance in thedoline which drops down a roughly 6m climb terminating in a dig with noairflow. We then found the correct entrance of cave in the right-hand sideof main doline (as viewed after walking from road).As we entered Five O’Clock Rod suggested we first do a trip through thecave to check the route, rigging and CO2. I disagreed, saying that we shouldjust do the trip once and with all the gear. Somehow I won, and we pushedand pulled the gear (luckily only the one small set in three bags) throughthe passage past the small entrance which is low and small with one tightsqueeze before reaching a small chamber you can sit up in, followed by aclimb about 2m (with a room off to side where you can look down tightsections of rift to rooms below and fresh air). At the base of the climb thereis a belly crawl section leading into a maze with multiple ways on. Denisand I entered this section to find the way on and noticed the effects of CO2

almost immediately. Stupidly, we pushed on regardless and found the wayon which continues straight ahead into a small chamber with a flat roof anda very large rock cairn. You then go down a non-obvious hole to the rightinto another small flat-roof section. You then continue straight then downanother non-obvious hole near the far wall to a lower section, following thispassage straight-ahead to the end. This passage has some sections whereyou look up rifts, and the pitch at the end. The route is confusing but wemarked the junctions well with rock cairns to assist on our future trips. Bythe time we reached the pitch we were sick from the CO2 and made our wayback out, resisting the urge to rush and instead moving slowly to minimiseexertion.After exiting, we made our way over to Marcus Mice to check out the progressof the other group, with Denis and Nat making their way down into the cave,and me and Rod deciding to explore leads on the surface instead (knowingthat Rod doesn’t fit through the first tight squeeze above a climb and that Iwas too chicken to push through without a rope or handline to assist!) thenenjoying a beer in the fading light.Rod’s wet shorts had been chafing his thighs badly for a few days causing red-raw skin which had become verypainful. After hours on the surface, he and I decided to swap pants so he could protect the red-raw skin a bit betterin my running tights. Naturally, the second we dropped our pants Nat and then Alison popped out of the caveentrance to see us standing in our undies, with helmets, a crowbar and beer. Truly SUSS.


Day 7 - Great Nowranie, Marcus Mice, Checking FeaturesOn day 8, Steve and Denis did a quick run through Great Nowranie, rigging the pitches for a future dive trip beforereturning to regroup with Jack and Hosie to return to Marcus Mice for another dive, some exploration of dry leads,and a good survey.The women of the trip; me, Nat and Alison, teamed up for ladies day (with Rod an honorary lady for the day asdriver, not because he looked so great in those tights the day before) and set off into the bush to locate some dolinesdescribed as having draughts and unexplored leads. We arrived at our first destination, Hornet Hole, and found aflat field of rocks. We spent a good half hour covering a 150m area around the GPS mark but found nothing exceptfor one hole the size of a rabbit, with no airflow or lead prospects. This was a mystery as the description indicated apothole entrance into 3m of damp passage with openable leads!We moved on and walked across the plains and dry creeks to reach Kessirlbech Cave (aka Koolairlabah) which Rodhad been very keen to explore. We all approached the large dual dolines with excitement, noting the two largecreeks that flow straight into the larger, main doline. Rod spotted a very small hole at first, joking that it’d be theentrance, before we hunted, and hunted, and hunted. . . then realised that oh god, it was the entrance. Too small forme or Rod, Alison and Nat poured themselves in and explored what they reported to be thoroughly tight, horrible,spiky passage. . . all the way to the current end of the cave which had a little bit of shitty formation, and a couple ofuninspiring and very difficult leads. Despite carrying knee pads all the way to the cave, neither of them had putthem on before entering so they returned very tenderised after about an hour of this tough exploring. . . convincedthat we had somehow made the entrance squeeze smaller as they struggled out.

Alison, Nat and Deborah, Ladies Day, Camooweal.Photo by Rod Obrien

Still early in the day, we decided to visit anothergood prospect promising draughts and leads. . . andfound two small dolines devoid of draughts or leads(but containing some very large snakeskins). Ex-ploring the surrounding area we noted a smallcreek running into a rock-sink which we openedup into a human sized hole. Nat, Alison and I wentin and were excited to find white crystal passagewith a 2m climb and a cool fresh breeze runninginto the cave. Nat explored a tight flattener to achoke then we went down a 2m sloping passage toa 3m climb, entering a stand-up chamber with adomed roof and no obvious way on. Contemplatingwhere the water would go, we tried a dig to theright which fizzed out, then straight down whichwas also playing hard to get. All that remainedwas a tight section off to the left which we initiallyclassed as too small, until I stubbornly scraped andsqueezed in taking my helmet off to see that thecave kept going around the corner.Deploying Alison, the hardy micro-bod, she some-

how squeezed her small frame around this horrible corner and found that it opened up into some more chamberswith evidence of high water flow, but no obvious leads apart from a couple of hard digs. We contemplated a suitablename for the cave and decided on The Naughty Corner in honour of that bastard corner and Alison the conquerorbeing a school teacher when she’s not exploring caves.That evening, everyone enjoyed showers (one group in town via a beer at the pub, and the other group thanks toPaul’s shower tent and pump), then Paul treated the tired group to a giant box of king prawns he’d picked up inDarwin.Day 8 - Little Nowranie, Marcus Mice, feature checkingOne week into the trip and no rest in site as we hauled four 12l and one 7l tank, plus a gear bag back into LittleNowranie. Thankfully we had the full group helping out so we got all the gear to the water in around two hourswithout too much exertion in the heat. Rod and I had 40% nitrox mixes and set off through the new connection intoGreat Nowranie.From the sump you follow the line almost straight down to 27m before going through a low hole in the wall into aslightly larger chamber with large mud banks. Going down the first section of line you are followed by an avalancheof fine red mud which makes visibility low through this next section which is around 40m of head bumping beforepopping out into the main Great Nowranie passage which is around 2m wide and 1.5m high on average, with somesmaller sections and multiple larger parts. The old line is coated in algae growth and the entire passage is filled withvarious types of bacterial growth. In sections, the old line is buried under mud or rocks up to 1m deep. The water


temperature was 29 degrees for the duration of the dive, meaning wetsuits were only required for extra buoyancywith our heavy tanks (which we gaffa-taped foam too for extra floatation). We followed the Great Nowranie line toits southern most extent where Rod was to explore, and extend the line placing a pinger at the very end, with mefollowing a short distance behind to survey this new passage.When we reached the end of the old line and Rod tied on, I noted that it was a bit deeper than the previous passageand that it had taken about 40 minutes to swim there which was longer than expected. We both had plenty of airbefore turning around on thirds, but I was distracted by trying to pre-empt how much decompression we might endup with, especially with the return trip likely to be much slower due to the reduced visibility. I was still throwingthese thoughts around in my head when Rod turned around to tell me that the new passage was too small andsilty to push and survey, so I should head back out again. Normally I’d be bummed about missing out, but withthe niggling heebie-jeebies threatening my comfort level, I happily said goodbye and cruised back out of the cave,pleasantly surprised to find reasonably good vis the whole way back to the junction. I began surveying the diveconnection between Little and Great Nowranie, but it was not possible to read the compass. Noting that I had stacksof air left, and that I was 2 minutes from deco, I had just decided to head out when Rod suddenly appeared at my side,scaring the shit out of me! He had extended the line a further 50 – 70m and placed a pinger at the end to be locatedon the surface for an accurate location and depth. We both made our way out through the tunnel, and into the sumpwhere we followed the dive line steeply upwards. I had my bright dive computer pressed flat on my dive mask tryingto read the depth and deco stops, but I couldn’t make out any numbers in the silted out water. I turned my light offand tried again when I was a bit higher and still couldn’t read the numbers themselves but I could see by the colourthat I didn’t have to make a stop. We reached 6m where Rod had fixed a deco cylinder of 80% oxygen, but we made asafety stop here without switching tanks before clambering out of the sump back into the hot and steamy cave.

Heading to the dive, Little Nowranie Cave, Camooweal.Photo by Deborah Johnston

With our deco tank full and my tanks still very full,we left them in place to be re-used the next day,only taking out Rods tanks to top up with Nitroxfor his longer dive the next day. Meanwhile on thesurface, Hosie located the pingers placed at vari-ous locations using Ken Smith’s receiver so he wasable to pinpoint the exact location on the surfaceabove each transmitter, and calculated the depthby taking a reading at 45 degrees. After that, Steve,Nat and Paul returned to Marcus Mice to finish sur-veying, while the others checked possible featuresfinding some impressive dolines but without anyopenable leads or airflow.Day 9 - Little Nowranie, SpinifexAfter a leisurely (or was that stalling?) breakfast,the group made their way back to Little Nowraniewith some freshly filled tanks, and were greeted bya large group of vintage car enthusiasts on a roadtrip. They asked lots of questions and took photosof the group while we got ready, lowered the gear

and disappeared down the first abseil. I had cultivated a healthy amount of trash-talking from the group whocalled down things like “does it normally look that awkward” as each caver descended, then I went last with mypre-arranged eruption of claps and cheers, only to find that the group had already moved further on in the caveexcept for a bewildered looking Denis. . . damn! We caught up and joined the smooth operation of chaining andlowering which meant we all reached the water with minimal time and effort. I jumped in first using the tanksI’d left the day before and finished off the survey of the new connection. It was so hot I couldn’t bear to struggleinto my wetsuit again so I jumped in with my shorts and tshirt instead, aided by the tanks being less full and soless heavy in the water. Visibility had cleared enough to survey bearings and lengths but not general passage sizemeasurements. On the way out I noticed a strange flatworm swimming through the water, which then moved up thedive line like a leech. I hoped to god it wasn’t a leech as I floated there without the protection of a wetsuit! Once Iwas out of the way, Rod grabbed his gear to jump in but quickly found that the travel cylinder he had borrowed fromPaul had been leaking from the valve and was now only half full! It was still hissing out air at a reasonable pace sowe swapped it for one of my larger tanks which was still just under half full. To compensate for the lack of buoyancyin fresh water using thin wetsuits, Rod gaffa taped some extra high density foam around each of the large tankswhich made them float much more readily in the water, keeping him up out of the silt. With his three 12l tanks on,Rod sunk through the mud to his knees, and took three big paces before zigzagging through the dry cavers coolingoff in the sump, then disappearing down the line.


Jack picked the right place in the sump to get an impromptu spa bath as Rod’s bubbles floated up just underneathhim (or at least that’s the source he claimed!). Rod sped down to the end of the line and then pushed it around anextra 100m before his computer started flashing at him. The passage he was in is slowly getting deeper and he hadreached 31m which was the limit he could descend with the mixture of oxygen he was breathing. Placing a pingerfor surface location, he then made his way back out of the cave as quickly as possible to minimise decompression.With the poor visibility and fast speed, he estimates whacking his head hard at least 30 times. He returned in timeto only have 15 minutes of decompression to complete, and was delighted to find that the rest of the group had takenall of the excess gear out of the cave.After they had pulled out the gear, the dry cavers went off to do Spinifex Cave.Correction: the dry cavers mutinied! Between lugging dive gear for three divers attempting different dive projectsevery day, us dry cavers had had little opportunity to enjoy ourselves in a non-labour intensive capacity. So at close to1800, we spontaneously decided to check out one of the better-sounding caves with significant dry passage which wewere not already tired of seeing whilst pulling dive gear through.Spinifex was a jolly cave, beginning with a tightish vertical section, which involved bridging down through a tallrift. There were several giant borehole passages with chambers over 15m high and wide, and some fascinatinglyshaped passage, including the guillotine, a keyhole passage with deadly-looking sharp edges around neck height, andanother section with looked like the inverse of dinosaur vertebrae.At the end of the two main passages there are sumps but only one has ever been dived. This cave is known for highCO2 but the group were able to make it most of the way to the water before having to turn back, exiting the caveabout 10pm that night.Day 10 - Marcus Mice, SpinifexHosie rushed off early (ok, it was 9am, so early for SUSS) to fit in one last dive in Marcus Mice and about an hourlater Steve, Nat, Alison, Jack and Denis made their way over to help bring out his gear, finish the last legs of survey,and de-rig the cave. Rod and I waited on the surface (the nice side of the very tight squeeze above a drop), but aftera couple of hours in the heat, we left a note explaining that we were off for a rumble through Spinifex. This endedup being a very short trip as Rod’s barrel chest did not fit through the one squeeze of the cave, which happens to bein the daylight zone of the entrance doline. This frustrated him wildly as he had done it several times in the past.Curse those shrinking caves!

Preparing for the dive, Little Nowranie Cave, Camooweal.Photo by Deborah Johnston

We returned to camp and found that Hosie hadgone to the post office in town (to collect birthdaypresents!), and the others had run away to do afun trip through Great Nowranie (and to leave adiabolical surprise for me as punishment for nothelping in Marcus Mice!).When Paul returned after lunch, we loaded our-selves with seven of his gear bags, including hishomebuilt side mount rebreather affectionatelycoined Big Bertha (but referred to in his absenceas the bitch) which was to be christened on thisvery trip! After a record two hours of gear fiddling,Paul jumped in the inviting sump and disappeared,heading down the other section of line to extendthe cave. After he left, Rod and I started extractingsix of the remaining bags from our previous trip.The two of us got the heavy gear bags and tanks allthe way to the bottom of the main entrance pitchat midnight where I called it a night as I was com-pletely stuffed! Paul returned letting us know thathis rebreather was mostly well-behaved, and that he’d added at least 20m to the end of the line, a fantastic effort!As we exited the cave we found the others sitting in their car next to the cave entrance having just come lookingfor us given the late hour. We contemplated bringing the bags up the last pitch for about 1 second before reasonprevailed and we left them there to worry about the next day.Day 11 - Great Nowranie, Little Nowranie, KalkadoonThe dry cavers headed off to Kalkadoon Cave, the largest known cave in the region which was accidentally namedafter a fighting tribe of the traditional owners of the area, oops!With a copy of Hosie’s map of Kalkadoon in hand, we were interested in some question marks along a narrow andvery long section of straightforward-looking passage. We entered through the very impressive doline entrance, which


required a 5m abseil, and which we rigged off a large boulder and a thread. We followed the most obvious passagethrough walkthrough passage to a low crawl. The low passage continued through a T-junction, where we took theright hand passage. This soon became walkthrough stream passage for a few hundred metres, then the ceilingdropped again, with crawling passage joining up many small rooms.Despite the many warnings we had been given, and our own generally good sense, we took less water in than we oughtto have done. This was a decision we would soon regret, as we sweated bucketloads in the hottest and most humidcave we had yet encountered on the trip. Denis and Nat pressed on for as long as they could, Denis even findinglengthy walkthrough passage before he decided to turn back, with Nat thoughtfully leaving a cairn behind for futurereference. Unfortunately, that future was to be quite close to hand, as they espied the cairn on the return trip andrealized to their disappointment that Denis had discovered a connection to the very walkthrough passage throughwhich we had entered!Moving at a constant, yet energy-conserving, pace in order to minimize dehydration, it took more than half an hourto return to the T-junction. It was decided that the cave needs a resurvey; the existing map already has a numberof tempting leads, and is only a skeleton sketch. The survey team would need to bring a lot of water and Poweradewith them, and to park their car well before the road becomes overgrown, as Alison learnt to her peril, and the severepuncturing of one of her tyres!

A frog inspects Paul Hosies home-made rebreather,Camooweal.Photo by Paul Hosie

Hosie was spending some quality time with BigBertha, so Rod and I headed into Great Nowranieto de-rig the top two pitches.As we approached the entrance we met two tourists,one of which was famous in the area having fallendown the cave entrance in 1981, luckily landingon a large chockstone where he lay injured. Hereported that luckily there was water on the rockshe was able to lick otherwise he felt he would surelyhave died. Mines Rescue eventually pulled himup and he recuperated with no long-term damage.Despite this experience he said he had still alwayswanted to explore the caves but had never foundthe opportunity.We reached the top of the pre-rigged abseil andwere greeted by the rotting remains of a feral cat.The tourists insisted on staying to watch us do themain abseil, much to the dismay of my fairly fullbladder! Rod and I had a look around the upperlevels of the cave, admiring the warp zones whereyou walk into visible humidity clouds where thecave roof is belled. On the way out, we de-riggedthe second pitch with the bastard rebelay, thenthe main pitch before moving one doline over tobegin bringing the rest of the dive gear out of LittleNowranie.Rod and I went to the bottom of the cave and silently stared at the many heavy gear packs for a moment beforebeginning the ordeal of hauling, dragging, lifting, shoving and cursing. Fatigue from the previous nine days had welland truly caught up with me so my mood was a thoroughly shitty one, and I attempted to coax Rod into giving up atvarious stages and leaving the bags in place. Rod stayed the course and when we reached the half-way point wewere both delighted to hear the voices of the others who had come back from a long, hard day and Kalkadoon andwere there to help us finish the last of this slog. It was about 9pm as we were exiting the final chambers and wesurprised a pair of large ghost bats that were flying in.Day 12 - Rocklands StationThe group assembled after breakfasts relatively early (9am!) and headed up the road to a large cattle stationwhere we had gained permission to explore for the day. After checking in with the manager’s wife, we all visitedJurutu cave which looked very prospective – taking the entire overflow from the large Georgina River when it floods.Unfortunately, the impressive doline choked out after a short distance in the cave with evidence of ghost bats feedingon local animals (including rat skulls found).The group then split into two with Paul, Denis, Jack and Alison heading off to check out the impressive Barwidgeedoline and Theatre in the Round Cave, while Rod, me, Steve and Nat set off for lightweight dive trip in HasselsCave where Rod would find the end of the previously laid line (laid by whom I still don’t know?) then extend it (his


speciality!).After slowly negotiating the new roads across the station, we found the best section for the final 3.2km off-roaddrive to get to the cave. After a short distance we realised that the black soil was too soft to continue with Rod’s carsinking deep in the dirt as we negotiated the large rocks. We briefly considered walking, then accepted that it wastoo late in the day to attempt such a long trip without driving, and that this would have to be deferred to anotheryear when the soil was more firm. This decision was met with little resistance given the fatigue shared by everyoneat this stage of the trip!There was no rest to be had however, as we sparked up the GPS and formulated a plan for checking off featureswhich had been identified as possible caves and dolines from aerial images but not yet explored. We packed our bagswith optimism, crowbars and water, then headed off into the bush with a skip in our step. After trekking in the heatto six or so featureless plains, the skip was well and truly replaced with a drudge, only broken up by the amusementover my terrible driving, including a shameful bunny hop past one farm gate, and Nat suggesting at one stage thatwe could put the truck in neutral and all push it the short distance to a shady parking spot rather than endure myattempts at a hill start!Nearing 5pm we knew we only had an hour or so to meet the rest of the gang so we trudged off to check one lastfeature and found nothing. Refusing to give in (after all, we know that all the big discoveries are made at the end!),we split up and explored the surrounding landscape before lucking upon an interesting area of limestone whichtakes a huge amount of water from Scrubby Creek. The surface limestone was impressive, looking like tessellatedpavement that then further eroded into 2.5m+ cracks, with some sections toppled over.We were exploring these cracks when we disturbed a large dingo which legged it off into the distance, earning theresulting cave the name Dingos Dash. After recovering from this encounter (and making sure there were no dingopups) we put Nat down one of the deeper cracks. After a worrying amount of time she returned describing the smallsections of passage that she’d found including some small streamway passage and some of the largest snakeskinsshe’d ever seen (pythons). Steve then popped in for a look and found some more passage and then what seemed to bethe way on with difficult rock pile choke with breeze.The other group, consisting of Hosie, Denis, Jack and Alison, had also been surface trogging. We had initially beenintending to resurvey Barrawidgee, since the existing map cannot be located. Barrawidgee consists of two largedoline entrances, with an underground connection, and which takes a great deal of water during the wet season. Werigged the entrance pitch, faffed with Hosie’s DistoX which was giving readings in radians, and Denis spent someconsiderable time sketching the entrance doline. In the meantime Jack had been exploring, finally determining thatthe karst index description was sufficiently accurate, and that the cave would not benefit from a full survey. So despitehis many disappointed protests, we abandoned Denis’s sketch and headed to look for surface features that Hosie hadfound from looking at old maps and cross referencing with Google images. None were actual karst, so we spent apleasant hour wandering in a huge circuit of the countryside during the hottest time of the day.

Paul and Steve removing tar drums, Niggle, Camooweal.Photo by Rod Obrien

We then went to Theatre in the Round, with a largesloping entrance into a roughly 20m diameter semidaylight chamber. We were surprised to see an uniden-tified canine (possibly a dingo/dog cross) inhabitingthe entrance chamber, but not so surprised as this ca-nine was itself – it spent the next half hour dashingaround trying to escape our unthreatening presence.After checking the existing map, Alison located an un-surveyed entrance through a letterbox off an aven to asection of cave that corresponded with an unsurveyedsection marked as Henry’s lead. Jack, Denis and Alisonexplored a rock pile and meandering Vadose passage,with the latter two pushing a dig at the end, comingto a 2.5m squared room with a rubble floor, and witha potential diggable lead with very tight access. Evenwith some judicious excavation, Denis struggled in ex-iting this part of the cave. We returned to the entranceto meet up with Hosie, who had spent a relaxing cou-ple of hours contemplating the ceiling of the entrancechamber, and drove back to meet the others.

Day 13 - Meeting with Traditional Owners, Rubbish Removal from Niggle, Diving in Four Mile andNiggleToday Paul, Rod and I rushed out of camp early for a meeting in town with Colin, one of the traditional ownersof the area. We arrived on city time, then promptly reset out clocks to bush time and hung around for at least a


couple of hours having multiple cups of tea and pouring over Google Maps exchanging knowledge of the land. Afterthis leisurely start we met with a group of workers that had been assembled to help with the day’s task (includingDan the local copper) which was to remove the debris from Niggle doline which had been almost half filled with tardrums after the war, with the gaps filled in by decades of beer cans.We received a welcome to land from Colin’s sister Hazel letting us know that the group had the warm support of allthe traditional owners, then Paul gave an excellent introduction to the group explaining our exploration work andwhy it’s important, including how the caves are connected and all full of life meaning that if one is polluted, the restsuffer. After decking everyone out in their PPE for the day we grabbed a flatbed truck and headed the short distancedown the road to the doline and got to work.Hearing about the delayed starting time, us young folks decided to flee to the border! It was the first time into theNorthern Territory for some of us, so we entertained ourselves by mass-phooning at the border sign and gazingenviously upon the 130km speed limit signs. By the time we had had our fill of these things, it was time to turn backand meet the others.It was a bit of a slog but we had all but the most difficult drums removed from the doline in around two hours, beforeretiring to the shade of a tree and gas-bagging for an extra hour.Nat made a spectacular entrance to the seated lunch circle, thanks to her sturdy wellies. These had already been thecause for some comment in town, as the locals were openly amused by her choice in rain-appropriate footwear in thedriest of outback dry seasons. Over lunch, Nat managed a highly impressive face plant into the lunch circle as hergumboots contacted the cunningly flattened and hidden barbed wire fence. Needless to say, she was fine.After the work crew left for the day we split into two groups again with the dry cavers all descending on Niggle(taking Al Warild’s precious DistoX in the hopes that it would lead them to the SUSS extension that eluded them inKalkadoon), and the divers headed into Four Mile. Each group rigged the cave for a dive trip the next day.The dry cavers rigged Niggle with a 50m rope, and off a couple of boulders that made up the entrance, involving theuse of a couple of very long tapes. Eventually, the pitch had three redirections above a rebelay at a ledge about 10mabove the bottom, with a rope protector needed at the rebelay. One could abseil all the way to the bottom, but weavoided additional rope rub by climbing up and down the 3m slope from the bottom.Armed with Hosie’s map, Alison’s plan had been to check out the eastern unsurveyed leads. One of the leads thatDenis, Nat and Steve tried to explore involved a hairy climb up a muddy wall. The use of tape was not effective, andit was resolved that they would return on the morrow with a ladder in order to explore it more safely. Alison waspersuaded to enter into an awful hole which she decided not to push, as it involved removing both helmet and shoes.We took what we thought was Paveys Passage, but we ended up in a long passage filled with water with no junctionsfor what seemed like several hundred metres, but which didn’t correspond with any part of the map that we hadwith us, despite our best efforts in cartographic decipherment. We decided at around 1730 that it was time toturn around. A retrace of our steps didn’t help us to figure out where we were, so the five of us together are eithersurprisingly inept at map-reading, or there is some significant additional passage that has not been properly surveyed.

Python in Four Mile Cave, Camooweal.Photo by Natalie Brennan

My Scurion battery was getting low so I hadit turned off at one stage when we werepulling bags through a flattener using a longtape. Unfortunately, the end of the tapeflicked a fist-full of grit into my open eyewhich was a complete shit. My drink bot-tle was full of Gatorade but luckily Paul hadhis Camelbak full of water. He offered tocome through the flattener to give it to me,but I misheard that as him telling me tohurry up and come through. . . after I wasa bit of a bitch, snapping at the boys, Paulcame through and gave me some water andI began slowly extracting all the grit frommy eye bit by bit as I slowly made my waythrough the cave. The location of this sookycry-fest was then referred to as wailing wayfor the duration of the trip! The trip intothe cave was worth it as we reached an im-pressive rift passage with an excellent freehanging 25-30m abseil down to a clear poolwith frogs and Childrens pythons. We then


went to the ‘dragons teeth’ formation where we rigged a drop with a thick mat for rope protection over the sharpedges down to the lower passages with leads to explore and the large but murky sump to dive. Up top we foundlarge piles of guano and heard bats but none were sighted.Returning to camp we chatted with the visiting ‘bat man’ Arthur White, and his zoologist companion, Blake, whohad both come up from Sydney on a funded project to record ghost bat activity in the region, both delighted that wewere able to confirm guano and bat sightings in particular areas lightening their search efforts considerably.Despite the late hour, we also broke open Jack’s birthday cake, which we had had the forethought to purchase in townthat morning at the general store. We hope it made up for previous mediocre birthdays, when the one concession to theoccasion had been the presentation of a birthday rock to the young J. T. P. Wachsmann.Day 14 - Diving in Four Mile and NiggleThis morning Jack had a flight to catch from Mt Isa to return home early for work. Luckily, he had arranged to get acoach from in town to Mt Isa to save us the 4hr round trip, and even more luckily we organised for him to driveDenis’ car into town at 4am and stow the keys so we could all stay in bed at that disgusting hour!Rod and Paul prepared their dive gear all morning with the groups getting going after midday, then the two fullyladen groups headed off; Rod, Steve, Alison and I heading to Four Mile (where we caught up with the bat menwho were looking for the bats we had heard the previous day) while the others headed to Niggle. We got the divegear to the bottom of Four Mile in just one hour and Steve and Alison headed back up the cave to explore multipleupper leads which connected through maze systems, or terminated. After Rod jumped into the dive, I rushed over toanother section of stagnant water to see if any bubbles came up. While waiting by the stinky pool, I was able toprobe it with a stick and steel krab on a tape to determine that it is just a little pool with no dive prospects. I thenset off down the other lead on the map, which was a long belly crawl along a muddy passage with a couple of pools ofwater, labelled on the map as ‘to the bowel’ with a question mark. I continued along this passage a long way and itshowed no sign of getting smaller, but I ran out of time and found a place to turn around to return to the sump toassist Rod with pulling his tanks up the steep wall so he could then tape-climb back out. After re-emerging from theside passage I realised it was labelled to the bowel because you look like you’ve been shat out of it!

Critter, Niggle, Camooweal.Photo by Paul Hosie

Rod returned from his dive afteraround 40 minutes with his first wordsbeing “well. . . that was horrible!” Hehad descended the existing line to 40mwhere it goes through a bit of a flat-tener. The line then ends at a gravelslope where large rocks have beenpushed up the slope by large amountsof water. Rod poked the large cobble-stones getting ready to begin diggingthem out of the way, when the entireslope of rocks tumbled down, fillingin the space underneath him and pin-ning him to the roof. He backed outat lightning speed, let his heart ratesettle, then moved back in to jostle therocks again. Another landslide wastriggered, he gave the slope the finger,placed a pinger on the roof, then madehis way out of the cave. Upon exit-ing, there is an almost vertical sectionof dive line which then branches offin two directions, one going out of thecave and the other leading to a dead-end. Rod accidentally followed the line

to the dead-end then thought the line had broken. He got his reel and began to tie on before the vis cleared a bit andhe realised the error and he zoomed back out of the cave as fast as possible to minimise the amount of deco required.As we exited, we surprised a group of three locals who were very keen to try caving but unsure where to start giventhe lack of local clubs or cavers frequenting the area. One of the guys had abseiled down into the Great Nowraniedoline earlier in the day using just a dog-clip on dynamic rope, then climbed back out up the chockstones as he hadno ascending gear (or helmet, or light)! They let us know that they felt much more confident to explore the caveswhile we were around, and we did our best to explain the dangers of these difficult, advanced caves of their region,without putting off their desire to take up caving!


Day 15 - Four Mile, Niggle, meeting with ColinWith Four Mile already rigged and the packs at the water, Steve, Rod and I headed off at 8am to retrieve the pingerand de-rig the cave. We had rushed ahead early because we had some very important business to complete beforeentering the cave – a thick shake and egg rolls from the local roadhouse served up by non-other than the lady whohad been in the keen group we’d met at the doline the afternoon before. Nat, Denis and Alison arrived at the caveexpecting us to be well into the cave, but were disappointed to find us still stooging and only just getting our kneepads on.With the cave pre-rigged and no gear to lug we got down to the sump in about 20 – 30 minutes at a leisurely pace.Steve valiantly tried to pull me away from the swimming pool at the bottom of the pitch, but I was destined for thesplash. At the sump edge I stuffed around for a solid 45 minutes while Rod strained with all his might not to pushme in!To minimise the amount of gear lugging, I only took in my mask and computer, and used Rod’s booties and fins(which was a pain as they were way too big), and jumped into his trademark blue 5mm Seatec one-piece wetsuitwhich is a surprisingly good fit (albeit a little baggy on my biceps!). I opted to add a power inflater to Rod’s BCD butit had been so long since he’d had one attached as he manually inflates, so we checked it carefully to make sure itwould actually work.

Stygobiont amphipods living in the cave sumpsPhoto by Deborah Johnston

I jumped in the water with Rod low-ering his two 12l tanks from the daybefore, both still more than half full. Iopted not to worry about the 7l travelcylinder on offer but noted the 7L decocylinder hanging at 6m. The murkywater in the sump was a refreshing 26degrees but felt much cooler than the25 degree air.We had some yoga mat foam gaffataped to one tank which still hungheavily in the water, and had somehigh density foam strapped to theother which was bobbing up on the sur-face. Rod clips his regulator mouth-pieces to each tank while I prefer tohave mine clipped high on my BCDnear my chin, so there was a bit of amess sorting out where to tuck awaythe hoses. Eventually, I couldn’t put itoff any longer so dumped some air fromthe BCD and descended, trying not tothink about cave prawns crawling intomy ears!I had Rod’s BCD cinched tight aroundmy waist but it didn’t help the baggi-ness where I can’t fill out the shoulderstraps. This caused a strange profileas the one tank hanging down and the other one floating up caused the whole jacket to spin around! Luckily I wasin 6cm of vis so none of the cave critters could laugh at me as I wrestled with the jacket trying to get a bit morestreamlined. Giving up, I hooked my arm around the low-hanging tank and cradled it up against me as I headeddown the line to 10m where the line then zigzags from either side of a horizontal passage giving the impression thata much greater distance has been travelled than in reality. The passage pops into a large chamber where the watersuddenly clears from zero visibility to 6+ meters. The temperature also changes dramatically from 26 – 28 degrees(feeling more like 30+). On the way down to retrieve the pinger, I was impressed by a huge log which had washed insomehow, and more of the freaky bacteria that looks like moving animals when dislodged and floating free in thewater. Before I knew it, I was at 40m and looking at the reflector of Kens pinger, but the water was still stirred upfrom the collapse the day before so I couldn’t see the slope of doom. Clipping the pinger to my side, I then made myway out of the cave. I was in the short no-vis section, almost back into the main sump, when I felt the dive line goslack. After much groping around I realised it had come free from a wall protrusion it had been wrapped aroundwhich I fixed, but that process took a solid 10 minutes. Luckily this was only 10m depth so I was still able to finishthe dive with no deco, and emerged after a safety stop to find Rod who had been starting to worry why I was takingso damn long.


Freshwater land crab in Niggle Cave, Camooweal.Photo by Natalie Brennan

Day 16 - Four Mile, Niggle, Traditional Owner MeetingThe night before, Hosie had said over dinner that he wouldhead off to Niggle Cave at about 6am to do his last dive. Irolled my eyes at this wild claim of an early start, but to mysurprise he had already left camp at 6:30am! Motivated bythis effort, Rod and I set off an hour later to Four Mile withfour of us making it back to the surface with gear in just twohours, including de-rigging along the way. With Paul still inNiggle on his own, the rest of the group congregated for lunchand then made our way to a surface feature nearby whichheld great promise. This ‘quick look’ turned into hours withus eventually deciding to go and fetch Paul about 2pm.Rod, Paul and I had another meeting with the traditionalowners that afternoon to present our findings from the trip so

we were keen to be out of the caves by 4pm to allow a quick shower and change. It was 3pm by the time we reachedthe bottom of the pitch after each abseiling down through the very small entrance hole and crossing a friendlyredirection and a very unfriendly rebelay. We found Paul at the base of the pitch having finished a successful dive,and he raced out to head off to the meeting with Rod, with me opting to stay behind and help the others with thegear.It took the five of us just 30 minutes to get to the sump with no gear (at a cracking pace), then 2 hours to get the7 packs of gear back to the base of the pitch (again, at a cracking pack with one short detour to admire the whitefreshwater crabs that live in the cave). Nat then went up ahead to see if Rod was up at the entrance to help withgear hauling, and we all sighed with relief when she happily called back that he was. Two hours later we had all7 packs up the pitch and out of the cave. The group emerged at 9pm feeling shattered but relieved, but the reliefturned to angry disbelief when we found a very happy Paul whod been sinking beers in the doline for hours insteadof helping lug his gear! We went into town for our last Camooweal showers at the van park. With all the stallsoccupied, I ventured over to the less pristine truckies shower. This was probably a wise move as when I removed myt-shirt, the kilogram of dried mud flakes exploded like a bomb around me.

Deborah prepares for a dive in thick mud, Camooweal.Rod Obrien

I tried to clean this up but only suc-ceeded in smearing the mud aroundlike a scene from a bad horror movie.Eventually I left the shower stall feel-ing ashamed for what had been left forthe poor next person to come.Any delusions of being a celebrity diverwith minions on hand must have beenquickly replaced with the fear of allfuture requests for help lugging gearbeing denied, as when we returned tocamp from our showers, we found avery appreciative Hosie serving up ahot Indian dinner for everyone whichwas eagerly gulped down as he let usknow how successful the meeting withthe traditional owners had been, andhow the information of the life in thecaves and their underwater connec-tions will be used to help stop plannedfracking in the area.

Day 17 - Farewell Camooweal, for nowThe piles of dusty and dirty gear were shoved back into our cars and trailers as best as possible and we hit the roadfor our long drive back to Sydney with our poor muscles delighted to be finally resting after this epic but amazinglyfun trip.A final note: ALWAYS put your foot down (not on the accelerator!) when Denis suggests pushing on, and on, and on,and on, otherwise you WILL end up driving 1500kms in one day, and pull in to Mount Victoria only 48 hours afterleaving Camooweal. It’s not worth the sleep in. . .


JENOLAN OCTOBER 2013

BY DEBORAH JOHNSTON

Participants: Deborah Johnston, Rod Obrien, Al Warild, Alex Boulton, Michael Collins, Keir Vaughan-Taylor, PhilMaynard, Alan Pryke, Megan Pryke, Rowena Larkins, Thomas Cunningham, Bill Lamb, Michael Larkin (NUCC),Ryan Filler, Max Middlen, Kyle, Tina Willmore, Stephen Kennedy, William Slee.It was a busy weekend at the Jenolan caver’s cottage with two Canberra NUCC visitors (that I may have promisednot to call NUCCwits?!), two American exchange students, six divers, and seven regular SUSSlings!Saturday DivingOn Saturday, the divers for the day (Rod, Alex Boulton, and me) confused everyone by being ready to go at 7:30amand at their dive site in the Mud Tunnels of the Southern tourist caves by 9am. This was achieved with Rod’swhip-cracking to get us out of the hut, and with the much appreciated help of Rod, Rowena, Keir, Will, Alan andRyan who helped carry our gear. As we were entering the cave through the locked door I stopped to tie my peskylaces. In just a couple of moments they had raced along the Binomea cut and down the stairs towards the Templeof Baal. . . unfortunately with my headlight in tow! Without a light I could only pull the door shut and sit on thebench to have a sulk until the dry cavers returned. It wasn’t long afterwards that I realised the tank pack I had alsocontained my spare lights, but this lightbulb moment was too late as I had now locked myself out by closing the door.I waited and waited, and sulked and sulked, wondering why on earth they weren’t back yet. A tour group slowlyarrived and stared as I sat there in my bright red wetsuit, with one couple checking that they didn’t need a wetsuittoo! Eventually the guide appeared and let me in and I couldn’t help noticing that his last name was Dive! As I gotto the top of the stairs I met poor Rod and Alex at the top step after they had come back to find out what was takingme so long. They explained that the others had decided to exit via Lucas that day! Luckily we still managed to stayahead of the first group of the day, and all geared up and entered the dive. Rod swam ahead to film the entire diveon his gopro with the best visibility, with Alex and I following to wait at the first air chamber and assist with theclimbs once he had finished.

Alex climbing to new dry cave after diving Lethe, Blue Lake, Jenolan.Photo by Deborah Johnston

Alex and I reached the first restrictionwhere you typically turn around facingout of the cave, and go down the ver-tical slot feet first, taking one or bothtanks off to get down the tight bit. Iwatched in surprise as Alex squeezedhis whole body into the small alcoveabove the restriction, then watched inconfusion as he did some fancy yogamoves contorting around in the smallspace, then I watched in horror as hecompleted a barrel roll and started go-ing down the hole head first! This didnot look right at all so I got in place tohelp him back up again, only to watchhis fins, light and bubbles disappeardown the passage as he swam off un-phased.I followed (feet first!) and soon we wereat the first air chamber where I dida very horribly tight muddy climb toconvince myself that the one small bitI hadn’t looked at last time, wasn’t infact a lead that would come back to

embarrass me in the future. It wasn’t, and the lead was written off. After Rod had finished his video, he and Alexswam to the end of the dive where there was a climb in the third and final air chamber. Rod had bravely attemptedthis climb on an earlier dive using me as a human step ladder to reach the first foothold. He made his way up severalmetres by chimneying, but was forced to retreat when his manly chest (wrapped in two coats of 7mm neoprene!)refused to fit through the smallest part. It wasn’t possible to see what lay beyond the top of the climb, but I could seethat it curved off slightly and it just ‘had the look’ of going into horizontal passage. I’d had a very good feeling aboutthis for some time, but didn’t have the guts or skill to attempt the climb myself. Luckily, today we had Alex who


had the right size and eagerness required to get the job done for us. Rod easily boosted Alex up to the first footholdand he wriggled and grunted his way up the slippery climb with deceptively inadequate foot and handholds. Thetight section was still tight on his small frame but he reached the top and reported back the good news that we’d behoping for – human sized, clean washed horizontal passage waiting for us to explore! This exploration would have towait until next time however, as Alex was wearing a drysuit which would not be suitable for anymore rough drycaving so we exited with Rod and I bringing out just our tanks and leaving the rest of the gear for the following day.After some lazy lunching and tank filling we took Alex back down to the showcaves, this time to Blue Lake where hedived to Cerberus Junction using Rod’s gopro to film these sections of passage for us. Unfortunately for Alex he alsoused Rod’s Scurion dive, the light you use once and have to have despite the painful price tag! After his dive hepacked up and hit the road to prepare for a family event the next day while Rod and I relaxed giving the cave plentyof time for the silt to clear so we could finish our surveying.Saturday Dry CavingAfter the hordes departed unfashionably early, Max took the two Americans to the far reaches of Wiburds wherethey were well and truly tested. We were slightly horrified to find out later that they were both new to caving!Luckily we didn’t have to worry too much about their ongoing trauma from this experience as they both absolutelyloved it.Al Warild and Keir had originally planned to dive, but Rowena had convinced them to instead help her with herexploration of the Southern Limestone. Phil also replaced his dive gear with a survey kit and headed to sand passagein Mammoth cave with Thomas Cunningham in tow, while Bill took the rest of the group for an entertaining wanderto Slug Lake.Sunday DivingOn Sunday, Rod and I returned to Lethe with Phil, Al and Keir. We had no dry cavers to help, but because Rod and Iwere only carrying our refilled tanks, we were able to help the guys. There had been plans for the others to surveyBlue Tongue while it remains open, but unfortunately Keir had slammed his finger in a door which meant the drycaving to reach the water would be too painful. Instead we all entered the water in the mud tunnels, with Rod and Igoing back upstream, and the others did a downstream through trip emerging in Blue Lake.

Alex entering Styx resurgence heading to Cerberus, Blue Lake, Jenolan.Photo by Deborah Johnston

Rod and I groaned into our cold soggywetsuits, and felt our way along thepassages which were still completelymurky from the day before. Luck-ily, the section beyond our last sur-vey point was the only passage thathad cleared so we got to work. Theselegs were far more difficult than therest of the cave as here the water en-ters a rift with a series of blockageswhere the dive line does a series ofsteep corkscrews up and down witha big dog-leg in the middle. We per-severed and only had a few legs leftto finish when Rod swam down andstarted checking my hands. Thinkinghe was looking for another survey pegI showed him that I was only holdingthe end of the tape, when I realisedthat I was ONLY holding end of thetape as it had snapped in half! Call-ing it a day we headed out of the diveand packed up for the weekend. Weslogged out wearing our wetsuits andweights with a heavy bag of two tankson our backs, and a lighter but awk-

ward bag of everything else on the front. Rod made the steep stairs at the very end look easy, while I huffed andpuffed up at half speed.We got back to the hut fairly early and were delighted to find that Will had done a great job cleaning everything ashe procrastinated on his self-inflicted study day. We waited for the groups to emerge from Mammoth, the SouthernLimestone survey, and exploration around Hennings before rushing home, staying just ahead of the traffic from theBathurst races.


TO THE CAVES

BY SAFETY OFFICER – TINA WILLMORE

Driving under the influence of alcohol or fatigue? Is there a difference?I don’t drink so that is not an issue for me - I don’t drink because I do not like the taste of alcohol. Give me a bar ofchocolate!But fatigue, we are all susceptible to. Whether it be long hours at work, late to bed, can’t get to sleep, having a longdrive to your destination. Everyone gets tired.This is not something new but I would not have given much thought to it in earlier years; much thought in terms ofthe effects.Roads and Maritime Services (formally RTA) recorded over 3000 crashes related to driver fatigue in 2012, doublethat of driving under the influence of alcohol1

Mythbusters did a great segment on the subject of fatigue versus alcohol effects. They did base line driving testswhen rested. Then repeating the driving tests while tired – they stayed awake the night before, and again when abit drunk. The results of their experiment showed that fatigue had more dangerous effects than having a bit todrink.Fatigue produces dangerous results as does driving under the influence of alcohol - slow reactions and poor decisionmaking.Driving tired produces dangerous results. You are likely to make poor decisions and have slow reactions. Thinkabout it the next time you jump in the car.

1Second hand source


PICTURE GALLERY

Group Photo, Suss 65th. Photo by Don Matthews


Does Max clean his cave suit?

Alex and Deb in Lethe. Photo by Rod Obrien


Rick gears up, Pool of Cerberus. Photo by Demi Klachos

Deborah removes rubbish, Pool of Cerberus. Photo by Rod Obrien


THINGS TO BUY

For postage and handling costs and the details of how to order go to the SUSS website http://ee.usyd.edu.au/suss/and click on “Publications”. There you will also find a range of must-have maps and other publications.

Maps and Bulls on DVD

The entire SUSS cave map library of over 300 maps is on DVD and available for purchase. Out map library wasscanned to provide wider access to the maps for SUSS and other ASF Caving Clubs and to ensure that many copiesexist in the event of the loss or damage of the originals.There are field sketches, ink maps produced on drafting film, ink maps produced on linen, as well as some of thelatest digitally-produced cave projects. The DVD also contains all SUSS Bulls in HTML format from 35(1), July1995 to 47(4), March 2008 and SUSS Bulls as PDF format from 42(1), April 2002 to 47(4).Price is $25.00 + PH. Pick one up at the next SUSS meeting or if you can’t make that then contact the treasurer andthey can supply you with the SUSS publications fund bank BSB and account number for a direct deposit.

Tuglow Caves

By Ian Cooper, Martin Scott and Keir Vaughan-Taylor. 1998, 70 pages.Examines caving procedures, site descriptions, history, biology, surveying and maps, geology and hydrology of TuglowCave and others. Cost is $13 for members and $16 for non-members + PH.

A must-have reference DVD for all cavers

The Caves of Jenolan, 2: The Northern Limestone

Edited by Bruce R. Welch. 1976, 140 pages.We still have some copies of these books left. Contains maps and descriptions of many caves in the NorthernLimestone section of Jenolan plus notes on the history of Jenolan and its geology, geomorphology and hydrology.Cost is $8 for members and $10 for non-members + PH.


http://ee.usyd.edu.au/suss/

TRIP LIST: DEC 2013 TO FEB 2014

SUSS General Meetings are held on the first Thursday of the month at 7:00pm (for a 7.30pm start) in the CommonRoom in the Holme Building at the University of Sydney.For updates to this list, check out the SUSS Website: http://suss.caves.org.au. Detailed information on each cavingarea (plus other useful information such as what you will need to bring) can be found in the Beginner’s Handbooksection of the Website.Please Note: it is YOUR responsibility to inform the trip supervisor of any relevant medical conditions which may inany way affect your fitness, such as asthma, diabetes and the like.

NovNov 30 Jenolan 65th Birthday Partay SUSS is turning 65, and we’re letting loose! The barbie will be fired up,the slushie machine is going to be working overtime, and the jukebox is coming out to lay down some grooving tunes.It’s the event of the year, so don’t miss out. All members of the caving community are welcome. Contact William:william [email protected] 30 – Dec 8 Jenolan. Come for a few days or a make an epic out of it to celebrate the end of exams! Jenolanhas plenty to offer from grandma trips to full assault courses. Leave the protective equipment home at your peril.Contact Tabitha:[email protected] – 15 Canyoning. Beginner-friendly canyoning!! Contact Thomas W.:[email protected] – 22 Canyoning. More canyoning to send off the fast-fleeing year. Contact Phil:[email protected] 26 – Jan 8 Triple Tassie Trip. SUSS ventures to Tasmania for a whirlwind tour of Mole Creek, Ida Bay andJunee Florentine. Experienced SRT cavers only. Trip size strictly limited. Email Deborah:[email protected]

Jan 20144 – 5 Timor. For details check the SUSS web site closer to the date.11 – 12 Jenolan. Stay at the Luxurious Cavers Cottage, and enjoy our regular haunts. Contact Phil:[email protected] – 19 Canyoning. More canyoning to welcome the new year. Contact Denis:[email protected] – 30 Cooleman. A solid not-quite-week of cave diving at Cooleman (south-west of Canberra), with plenty fornon-divers to do as well. Contact Keir:[email protected] – 2 Wombeyan. A beautiful camping ground in the Southern Highlands, with caves to match! Contact Tina:[email protected] – 9 Jenolan. Our constant lair. Reside within the lavishly appointed Speleologists’ Residence. Contact Rowena:[email protected] – 16 Canyoning. Make the most of the still-warm summer weather. For a wet and wild time contact Denis:[email protected] – 23 Bungonia. Sporty caves for the less experienced; lots of ropework for the more experienced. Contact Will:william [email protected]

Volume 52(2)

Documents

Transcript of Volume 52(2)