Diving in OZ

[FW]

I spent a week in the Mt Gambier area, and dove 5 sites. We did Ewens Ponds, Piccininnie pond, Pines, Englebrecht west, and Tank cave. Most were not much more than cavern dives, except one (Pines) had a hole through the breakdown to another chamber. The best was Tank cave. It only has one entrance, but a maze of passages. They have done a nice job of marking the lines, with numbers at each intersection and arrows showing the closest way out. It is a little like Ginnie, and a little like Cow.

We are headed for the Nullarbor today. I will do a better report when I get back in a couple of weeks.

You can see some pictures here http://www.cavedivers.com.au/gallery/

[mwenner]

Keep scoopin Forrest!

[crawford]

Wish I were there. Some sweet day.

[*Ag*]

Glad you enjoyed the dives Forrest.

Really enjoyed your presentation! Have fun out West.

[DrHarry]

Enjoyed your company out on the Nullarbor Forrest. Hope the drive back to Adelaide wasn't too onerous. Sorry i won't get to your farewell BBQ mate.

Cheers
Harry

[FW]

I have been back for a few days, but just now getting over the jet-lag.

We spent nearly 2 weeks on the Nullarbor Plain cavediving, and dry caving. The cavediving is very different there. Aside from the fact that it is hundreds of miles from the nearest big town, the water table is 300' below the surface. You go into sinkholes, and climb down breakdown piles about 1000' back into a "dry" cave just to get to the water. It takes about 3 trips to get all your gear to the water. The cavedives we did were in sinkholes that required abseiling (rappelling) to get into. We lowered a lot of the gear down the high side, so we didn't have to carry it quite so far. They had a compressor on site, with a 1200' hose back to the water.

The first cave we did was called Warbla, and is closed as a reference site. The group I was with have a permit to check on the growth of bacterial colonies in the cave. It has a sizable bat colony, so we had to walk through guano piles to get to the water. Some of the guano is floating on the surface. It was worth it, because the cave was very nice. It has clear water (past the bat guano), and white walls. The passage is big, probably bigger than Manatee. There are upper and lower tunnels. Maximum depth I saw was 49', and runtimes of 30 to 50 minutes. We were placing "pingers" (radio locators) to be located on the surface for mapping purposes. We also shot pictures of the bacteria colonies. This bacteria seems to actually feed on the limestone, and is slowly enlarging the cave at the halocline area.

The second cave we did was Webubbie. Another group was already there, and they had put ladders down the start of the sinkhole, so we didn't need ropes. It was still a long hike to the water. The water was so clear that Ken had to tell me where it started. Some cavers have been walking along, and ended up in the water. The water starts in an underground lake, with airspace for the first 600 feet. We just swam on our backs to save air, until we got to the end of the airspace. The ceiling is pretty high, probably 30', sloping down to about 10' where you have to go underwater. The passages are huge, about 60 or so feet wide, and 40' or so high. It is basically one long tunnel, sloping down to 130'. It is still 10' wide and 6' high at the EOL. Runtime was 76 minutes.

I am wading through hundreds of pictures, but I will pick out a few and post them later.

[FW]

More pictures are in the Photo Gallery inside the cave-and-springs/international/Australia gallery.
http://www.cavediver.net/forum/galle...ages.php?c=536

[jlillest]

Great stuff Forrest! Did you borrow regs, or is that what you normally dive with?

[FW]

Great stuff Forrest! Did you borrow regs, or is that what you normally dive with?

I dive Xstremes in reasonably clean water. For muddy sumps, I use Cyklon 300s, because they are bullet proof.

However, I don't normally have my light cord dangling
I guess holding that strobe caused it to unwrap off my arm.

[jlillest]

I dive Xstremes in reasonably clean water.

I'd call that reasonably clear water!

I saw some Poseidon logos and ads in some of the other photos, I didn't know if you had borrowed gear. That helmet, though, is definitely not borrowed.