Exploration in Constitution Hole

 Caving, Tasmania  No Responses »
Aug 122013
 
Exploration in Constitution Hole

About the cave Something different this week – caving without dive gear! The cave in question is Constitution Hole, a newly discovered entrance at the bottom of a hill in the Junee Florentine area of Tasmania. After a short walk through the rainforest, the cave starts with a muddy pitch, a narrow meander, a short pitch and a nasty wet traverse before reaching the top of the Hang-glider Chamber seen above. About the trip On this particular weekend we discovered a much easier shortcut back to Hang-glider as well as two new pitches in the lower area. Stopped by a shortage of rope we didn’t complete the descent but headed back up. While waiting for the photographer (again!) to ascend [read more…]

Elk River past sump 4

 Cave diving, Victoria  8 Responses »
Apr 152013
 
Elk River past sump 4

About the cave By the looks of things, Elk River is going to be taking up a lot of my time this year. Elk (aka the Murrindal Potholes Eastern Master Cave) is the streamway system underlying the Buchan Potholes Reserve. The streamway was first discovered in 2006 by the VCLT and the sump first passed by Jim Arundale, later joined in exploration by Agnes Milowka. This weekend just gone the cave has been extended to nearly 1.7kms with a fantastic dive through sump 7 and beyond by Steve Fordyce to add 115m of line, assisted by Ken Murrey. As the end gets further and further from home, the effort required to put new cave on the map is going to increase [read more…]

Caving through Elk River

 Cave diving, Victoria  3 Responses »
Jan 282013
 
Caving through Elk River

About the trip Apologies for today’s slightly delayed post…I’ve been underground. Elk River, accessed through Baby Berger cave in the Buchan Potholes Reserve, is also known as the “Murrindal Potholes Eastern Master Cave” and is the deepest cave in Victoria at 105m. The streamway was discovered in 2006 by the local Victorian Limestone Caving Team, and  between 2008 and 2010 Jim Arundale and Agnes Milowka made several pushes through the first sump to put more cave on the map. Agnes wrote up a great history of the cave’s discovery on her website here. In summary, 2 hours of carrying, passing and dragging gear through tiny squeezes, around precarious drops and under very narrow roof sniffs puts the eager cave diver [read more…]

Climbing through Great Nowranie Cave

 Cave diving, Queensland  1 Response »
Sep 172012
 
Climbing through Great Nowranie Cave

About the area Last week I started showing off my pictures from the Camooweal trip with the images of the ultimate goal – laying line past the end of the known underwater tunnel. Starting with success is compelling, but it’s not even close to the whole story of the trip. These two photos help illustrate why there’s been so little diving done up at Camooweal, compared to the easily accessible Mt Gambier caves, or even the well-known Nullarbor and neighbouring Roe Plains areas. The surface layer of black clay in the Camooweal area prevents the rain that falls during the annual wet season from filtering into the ground. Instead the water runs across the surface until it finds a weak [read more…]