Restrictions in Olwolgin Cave

 Cave diving, Roe Plains  No Responses »
May 062014
 
Restrictions in Olwolgin Cave

About the cave Olwolgin Cave is well on its way towards having more underwater passage than any other cave in Australia. With miles of intersecting tunnels, crazy rock shapes, dark water and white silt, it’s a photographer’s playground. About the dive As you saw in the video I posted last week, we had a lot of fun on our first dive of the trip. With nearly three hours in the water and lots of footage in the can, I wanted to move back to photos for the subsequent dive. We also moved from Upstream Olwolgin to Downstream Olwolgin, leaving the breathers behind and strapping on sidemounts instead. The tunnels here are bigger, and with only one diver to hold strobes [read more…]

Footage from Upstream Olwolgin Cave

 Cave diving, rEvo, Roe Plains  2 Responses »
Apr 272014
 

About the site I dived Olwolgin in 2010 and again in 2012 after the Downstream section had been discovered and while it was still being referred to as Unamed Cave. Even now, at a point where the Upstream areas of the cave have been dived extensively and finding additional passage is less likely, swimming through the twisty tunnels is an exercise in optimism. Dark water beckons from under scalloped limestone, just asking to be checked. The rock shapes here are beautiful. About the dive I’ve been out on the Nullarbor doing some filming up on the high plains, and it was nice to have a few days to play once the work was finished. Unlike my last trip out here, [read more…]

Ag’s Dreamtime Tunnel in Unnamed Cave

 Cave diving, Roe Plains  1 Response »
Jul 232012
 
Ag's Dreamtime Tunnel in Unnamed Cave

About the site Unnamed Cave is the most recent major discovery in Australian cave diving. Out on the Roe Plains in the West Australian desert, the massive tunnels discovered so far are still going kilometres from the entrance, with teams going out over the coming months to continue exploration. The cave was first dived last October on a trip led by Paul Hosie of CEGWA. Discovered half way through the expedition, the group spent the last few days chucking in as much line as possible before they had to return to civilisation. One of those divers was Brian Kakuk of Bahamas Underground, who worked with Agnes during the National Geographic shoot in the Bahamas in 2010. On his final dive, Brian [read more…]

Laying line into Unnamed Cave

 Cave diving, Roe Plains  2 Responses »
May 142012
 
Laying line into Unnamed Cave

About the site As I talked about two weeks ago, Unnamed Cave is located down on the Roe Plains. Freshly discovered last October by Paul Hosie of CEGWA, a number of trips have now seen over 2kms of line laid into virgin passage. Over Easter this year I was lucky enough to join a group heading out there. About the dive While I was determined to take both photos and video footage in the newly discovered tunnels, I was also quite keen to find a little bit of new tunnel of my own and add to the rapidly developing map. After an orientation dive in the cave to get my bearings, Ken and I planned a stage dive to take [read more…]

Hanging Roots in Olwolgin Cave II

 Cave diving, Roe Plains  3 Responses »
Apr 302012
 
Hanging Roots in Olwolgin Cave II

About the site Olwolgin Cave is located on the Roe Plains, south of the escarpment that curves across above the Great Australian Bight. Unlike the Nullarbor Caves above the escarpment, where the water table averages 100m below the desert, on the Roe Plains the water table is only 10m under your feet. This makes for much easier access. On the other hand, there aren’t the spectacular dolines that punctuate the Nullarbor and act as great big signposts of cave formation. Olwolgin Cave is shallow, up to 14m deep, has small, twisting passages in multilevel formation and a greenish tint to the water. From my dives here in 2010 I’d admired the massive hanging root formations. As I mentioned, I didn’t [read more…]

An orientation dive in Unnamed Cave

 Cave diving, Roe Plains  2 Responses »
Apr 162012
 
An orientation dive in Unnamed Cave

About the site Unnamed Cave lies under the Roe Plain in the West Australian desert. Unlike the caves on the Nullarbor Plain above the escarpment in the same area, the Roe Plains caves have the distinct characteristics you can see in the photo above – tinted green water, long shallow tunnels with tempting leads off each side and extreme scalloping of the limestone walls. Unnamed Cave was discovered last October by Paul Hosie of CEGWA, and the initial few days of exploration were carried out by Brian Kakuk, Ken Smith, Richard Harris and Grant Pearce. Paul did the first push through a particularly nasty restriction and after 90m or so, the cave opens up to the very large passage you [read more…]

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