Caving in the Flinders Ranges is a great experience.
There are many challenging but different caves which can be entered.
The 6 members of Gawler Venturers had learnt and practised abseiling, been
caving in Punyelroo Cave near Swan Reach, practised self lining laddering
techniques as well as playing “Space Ball” as preliminary training before
the Flinders Caving Trip.
[Space Ball is basketball played while suspended in a climbing harness
from the rafters]
We camped near Mairs cave arriving late on Friday night. The next morning
after collecting the keys we unlocked the gates and set up for the 17
metre ‘free’
abseil a great buzz!
The cave has some excellent decoration along with some challenging squeezy
bits and an adventure section aptly named the ‘Catacombs’. We spent 4 hours
in this cave before climbing the ladder and de rigging the abseil before
enjoying a late lunch.
The nearby ‘Clam St. Dora’
cave is also locked. The inner section reached by .a particularly
difficult crawl has extensive decorations with huge columns, massive walls
of ‘coral’ formation and beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. This cave was opened
up to access the large bat guano deposits during the 1930’s
by digging out a 2m by 2m drive. [tunnel]
All the caves that we visited were mined for guano a natural fertilizer.
On Sunday morning ‘Nugget’
took us on an hour's scenic 4WD tour over the more rugged sections of the
property with expansive views a bonus!
Then it was on to the next property where after meeting the landowner we
briefly entered the first chamber of Mt. Sims cave then continued on to
the closest track point to Good Friday cave our afternoon destination. The
station track proved to be a good test of our two 4WD vehicles with many
washouts requiring careful wheel placement, low ratio and some track
filling Thanks guys!
Good Friday cave is a 2 km hike from the track and has a narrow slot type
entrance on the side of a hill. A steep climb down the slot gains access
to 60m of dusty passages with some old but excellent decoration. We had to
lower our gear packs into the cave since the rain started as we arrived
poor timing! Venturers manoeuvred themselves through tight squeezes, up
narrow solution tubes and chimneyed down slots in the walls great fun!
We camped that night near Arcoota Creek cave with some more
“nuisance”
type rain.
Rising early again we had breakfast and entered this joint controlled,
dusty cave.
After negotiating the infamous ‘key hole’ we reached the two vertical
shafts enlarged from the original narrow chasm type entrances. Much time
was spent by the Venturers exploring the lesser visited parts of this cave
with much crawling and negotiating squeezes.
A climb to the top of the hill in which the cave is situated to find the
shaft entrances completed our caving.
We spent over ten hours underground, saw some great formations, forced our
bodies through some seemingly impossible spaces and had great time.
Thanks for a great caving trip guys.
Thanks also to Andrew Kilpatrick V/L Gawler Venturers
Michael Woodward - Scout caving Group
