THAMPANANA ROCKHOLE was our next cave, for this one you had to abseil down a massive hole and then prussic out. From a distance, you wouldn’t even realise that the rockhole was there, the ground was so flat and there was only a small depression to indicate that there was “something” there.
We drove from the Old Homestead campsite to the top of the cave and set up the ladder and ropes, there was a hole in a rock which made for a convenient anchor. We abseiled in, it was fairly straight forward and we all gathered down the bottom then crawled through a tunnel on our bellies, the wind was blowing, probably from behind us, anyway by the time we were exiting it had changed direction, caves apparently “breath” and the air will whoosh out or in depending on the time of day.
Nat and Brian after setting up the ropes, poor Nat has her head in her hands, don’t know what that was about, but with Ken on the trip, maybe she’d just seen him do something interesting.
The cave wasn’t too long, in fact it took only half a day, there were some nice formations a lot of them looked like wax and there was one stunning “christmas tree” formation (photo to the left), but nothing like Mullamullang.
When it was time to prussic out, we arrived at the ladder/rope and the wind coming out of the cave was phenomenal. It was my turn to exit, I’d had enough of ladders from previous experiences with them (I usually ended up looking like a rape victim with bruising all up and down my thighs so wasn’t keen to use the ladder), so I chose to prussic up, Nat weighted the rope to start me off, it was really, really hard going, particularly with the wind as strong as it was. The fact that the pitch was overhung made it even more difficult. Once I got to the rock face and could get a bit of leverage, I had to take a rest I was so stuffed. Then started off again, eventually I was up at the top and out, this was my first long prussic (using mechanical ascenders), and it was more tiring than I expected. Wendy’s turn was next and she too struggled with the prussic, we were both pleased to finally get out!
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Hi
Any chance you could email the GPS coordinates of Thampana Cave. I visited there in 2004 and while I have a GPS mark (not sure where I got it from, wasn’t when I visited) I have looked at Google earth and cant see the entrance or the rocky area around it.
Ta
Unfortunately Ray, I didn’t have a GPS with me and was just a “follower” on the trip, so have absolutely no idea where it is. Would be hard to find on Google Earth as there is no “doline” to speak of.