Mud, mud, mud in DD4 cave

 Cave diving, Caving, Victoria  2 Responses »
Jul 012014
 
Mud, mud, mud in DD4 cave

About the cave DD4 is a streamway cave in western Victoria, close to the South Australian border. Unlike the crystal clear sinkholes of Mt Gambier DD4 is a small stream winding its way through limestone…and lots and lots of mud. There is a lot of walking passage through the cave, as well as a lot of areas where rockfall leaves you climbing over or under. And then there’s the mud. Lots of it. About the trip We visited DD4 for a reason – to follow up on sump exploration there from several years ago. Agnes Milowka put nearly 70m of line into the terminal sump of the cave and reported that it continued. It seemed about time to see how [read more…]

Diving the end of Elk River

 Cave diving, Victoria  1 Response »
May 282014
 
Diving the end of Elk River

Last weekend was our twelfth trip into Elk River cave. We missed the Easter trip with a few people away (out on the Nullarbor, in my case) and it was good to be back two months after the last trip. In March Steve spent his time beyond sump 5 pinning down and re-routing the existing line to make the inevitable zero-vis exits as painless as possible. This work, and the stash of tanks staged at the end, set us up well for a push beyond the end of the line this trip. In addition to putting Andreas in sump 7 to push, I also intended to accompany him with camera in hand. On previous trips I had carried the camera [read more…]

Camping in Elk River

 Cave diving, Victoria  1 Response »
Nov 252013
 
Camping in Elk River

After a year of hard work and a lot of time in the cave, this was our 10th trip into Elk River for 2013. The cave has been extended both upstream and downstream and the spaces on the map have been gradually filled in. We capped off the year with Dave and Sandy carrying in some very large tanks and four of us sleeping at the far end of the cave, just above sump 5. Camping in there had been discussed a number of times but I never felt we were going to gain much by doing it while we could still reach the end and back in a single day. Then our last trip was a very efficient quick [read more…]

Elk River trip report

 Cave diving, Caving, Victoria  2 Responses »
Oct 142013
 

I’m going to have to interrupt my recounting of our Indonesia adventures (Part 1 and Part 2 so far) to bring you up to date on this weekend in Elk River. We had an epic 17 hour trip underground to achieve the stated mission of extending the line in sump 9. My last trip into Elk was back in June, when I extended invitations to a couple of interstate visitors only to be rained out by over 200mm of water the week before. The rising waters through the early parts of the cave caused us the rethink the trip at sump 1. Not wanting to repeat that disappointment I suggested postponing future push trips until the worst of winter was over. In July [read more…]

Elk River in Flood

 Cave diving, Victoria  No Responses »
Jun 172013
 
Elk River in Flood

We were back in Elk River Cave this weekend just gone, with big plans and lots of tasks on the to do list. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas with torrential rains from Thursday. We entered the cave on Saturday morning with a huge pile of gear to find the water level was only slightly raised in the first bit of the streamway – good news. After changing from dry caving gear into dive gear we headed off down the stream towards the first sump…only to find the first roof sniff had become a dive. The dry cavers left us at that point and the diving team of five continued to sump one. From the second roof sniff to sump [read more…]

Self portraits in Elk River

 Cave diving, Victoria  1 Response »
May 202013
 
Self portraits in Elk River

About the trip Although I didn’t take very many photos on our last weekend trip into Elk River, I wanted to share a couple more of them with you. Last week I talked about getting shots of Sandy coming through sumps 2 and 3 and the difficulty of staying ahead of the silt to get a shot through clear water. On the same trip I was also keen to get a shot in the first downstream sump. Jim Arundale was the first person to pass sump 1. Over a number of attempts he pushed his way through the short underwater distance to the other side. The most pertinent feature of the first sump isn’t the length though, it’s the height. [read more…]

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