A year of firsts that for sure....
After caving I Googled and found a local club - I hooked up with them for a long Easter weekend adventure (SUSS - Sydney University Speleological Society). It was a bit intimating getting in the car with strangers - 1. cause for safety purposes and 2. a 7 hour drive is a long way to make chit chat.
I was excited to get out of the city - see the greater country. I was all about seeing kangaroos and wildlife...welll we got the area in the middle of the night that was bound to have a roadside kangie viewing...sure enough the first one we saw jump in the middle of the road and we hit it!!! Going really slow and it hopped away but how is that going to happen. Then we hit a owl - i mean what a trip.
I was out of my element and regretting it on the way. But it turned out to be all good. There were several other people that really didnt know anyone and were also new at caving.We camped around the "hut" a building that used to be the post office in the 1800's... when there was a town here, it was the largest building in the town. This story creeped me out and my mind was running the first night as there were only a few of us...but as the camp site filled in it really wasnt creepy.
um one piece of advice - a $40 tent from kmart not quality...i mean not even acceptable as a tent, I was so scared the whole time that it wasnt going to last through a night...here i am with hard core outdoor people and I am in this ghetto gear.
I was a bit worried about going caving that was not a designated tour group. There were a few trips that they really didnt hold the newbies hands but overall they looked after us.
We did 3 serious caves (Friday did Old Inn, Saturday did East Creek Deep upper and lower and Monday did Coppermine) and a few show caves or tourist caves on Sunday (Jersey Cave, and on other).
That picture above is me laying in what looks like a hole...weelll we were mid way through a crawly bit in the cave...about 10 minutes like that (which seems like an eternity)...we had to do some serious shimming through this cave...a few points the rumble from those ahead sounded like the cave was coming down. I picked it up too fast and got my intense bruises.
Most caves are made of limestone - millions of years ago these formations were under water. Now, in time when rain seeps down and ground water builds into the crevasses it corrodes the caves and creates formations like stalactites that drip from the ceilings as Straws into Stalagmite on the cave floor. There are also white deposits of chalk and cave coral which forms from an air draft.
Not a lot of life can survive in the caves - it is very cold in the caves. We did find remnants of insects and bat remains.
My first camp fire in Australia!!
This was my favorite formation - an orange glittery formation
My first thermal pool - hot spring experience. I thought it was going to be a bit more out door feel not cemented but the fungi and floaties were pretty nasty.
Check out the full on bush hike out of the cave - i mean no trail, trumpin the forest and i got off track somehow...in the outback!! What is up with no man left behind, I lost track of the group but it was clear where I had to go...i was in the middle of the bush!!! there could have been and probably was all kinds of bugs and spiders! Come to find out there was a huge brown snake looming around - only one of the most dangerous in the country. greeeeat.
Peering through the whole that I was someone to squeeze threw...at one point I got stuck and panicked a little as there was no one behind me to push. We had to wear these cumbersome battery packs on our side that really got in the way of everything.
Getting ready to head into East Creek Deep - we got to a spot and had to de trog which means undressing out of muddy clothese into clean clothes to go into beautiful chambers. The group is very conscious of keeping the caves in tact and clean. But it was sooo cold in there!
I loved being around the camp fire again
The sunday hike was beautiful... we had a few good laughs as they were telling me about some of the animal encounter Aussie stories...crocodiles eating people while their mates watched from a tree, sharks, etc... They asked for an American animal story...well the first that popped in my head was the one in Enumclaw Washington, human and horse doing the nasty for international audiences... they were scarred.
Free climbing up this portion was really scary - there was a rope but it was not around my waste or anything...they were like wrap your hand...then what? Phil gave me a knee, a shoulder and someone gave me a hand up top too.
I am straddling a cliff - on slippery rocks...this trip a little on the risky side...no ropes.
My first wild Wallby - a mini looking Kanagroo. THEN we drove by some kangaroos!!! So big, I ran out by them. AWESOME. We look for Roos like we look for deer at Natchez in State and then we look for Rumbies or wild horses like we look for Elk. We didnt see any Brumbies. Saw a blue toungue lizard on a hike.
