Nov 2013 – Whats on the Grill (trip 06)

With Sparky, Jill and Terry Brett and Rob.

(the auderve)

Much dirty fun had in and around the 'duck under'.

This has quite whetted my appetite for this activity once again.

March 2014 (Dirty weekend at Jenolan) (trip 07)

With Sparky

(The Entree)

A great long weekend of just hanging out in the old world decadance that is Jenolan Caves Guest House.

Of course we caved too !

Everything was an adventure. The storm that shook the valley 10 minutes after we arrived, dumping a covering of hail, knocking out the power in most of the caves, and churning the river and dams into a muddy syrrup.

Entering our first cave of the w/end was like a scene from the Poseidon Adventure. Water gushing from fissures in the roof and wall. Even the guides were astounded.

The main (caving) aim of our weekend was to do an Adventure cave. (You have to do one of the small caves before you can do Mamoth). What a trip down memory lane. ! We booked onto the PlugHole tour ( or Elder cave). As kids we used to 'poke around' this sink hole. So funny being led and observed by a guide … We had a blast. Our very small group, just Denise and myself with two guides made short work of the prerequisite moves and suddenly our guides warmed up a bit as they realised they could now take us, and show us, stuff 'they' wanted to see... Very cool indeed !

April 2014 – What's in the Grill #2 (trip 08)

With Nicky.

(taste test1)

Foul air after the Horizontal ladder. Not much point push on. Much fun had on the way back out, exploring many of the less visited side passages that normally go unnoticed.

The small passages behind the double ladder and leading to the ladder up old tourist section and indeed the old tourist section itself particularly interesting. Hard to imagine how it must have looked in it's heyday. The two interconnecting tunnels in the RHS of the daylight chamber provided some entertainment as well. Met a nice group coming in at this point.

April 2014 – What's in the Grill #3 (trip 09)

With Nicky.

( a bigger bite)

Grill is high on the agenda now, it seems.

We tried our luck again this week end, and were rewarded with the foul air level having dropped to a little before Crystal Palace. (starting around the floor canyon leading down from top of mudslide).

We did push down a few more minutes, but soon decided to head back, and up, to better air and more fun. Pausing along the way to re-read the description and look at the map and try to fit it in with what we could see,

Back up to the bottom of Horizontal ladder, (air ok here today but was bad last week), and then down through the boulders to duck under.

Not surprisingly... air was bad down here. A little bit of grovelling too and fro but with the air as it was, again decide to move up and explore higher near the entrance.

We met a somewhat ill prepared looking family unit coming in as we re-entered daylight chamber from the railed section.

Although we suspected they wouldn't go that far, with their fairly dim hand torches and a battery lantern, we did warn them of the bad air deeper in the cave and lent them a lighter with instruction on how to check the air for themselves.

Ourselves ? We got busy climbing up into Daylight Hole (B188?) and surprised ourselves when we climbed back down and found ourselves back in Daylight Chamber. (ie not where we started our climb up in the first place?!?) Our climb down had taken us over the top of the low duck between the two locations and we emerged on the opposite side of the chamber across from the drop directly below Daylight Hole.

Back up in the entrance chamber we decided the next call of business would be to find the 'small passage' that bypasses all the ladders and leads to the base of the Big Ladder. We easily spotted the hole, and I discounted it as requiring too much effort for now, and went off exploring up the sediment bank instead. Nicky however stuck more than her head in, and quickly announced that it gets really good !!

Peering through the hole again I could see Nicky in a fair sized rift like chamber, with very steep drops.

Exciting! . The slide in under the boulder was much easier than I had earlier anticipated and there was much more room to move than 1^st thought. The floor drops quickly in a number of short awkward steps and stops suddenly at the brink of a long vertical drop. Carefully manouvering to the back of the ledge I could step down and across the drop to a ledge on the other side, but from there, no easy route down was found. More to the point, I felt if I could get down, I wasn't sure I could get back up again, if I couldn't find my way out the bottom.

I'm sure there is a way … we just have to find it. Next Time !

To be continued ….