How NOT to …

BORENORE & GLENROCK – April 2025
I love the HowNOT2 social media posts – mainly focusing on how not to kill yourself when doing ropework.  When I coordinated some Introduction to Caving weekends for MSS to introduce those who haven’t caved before to caving, I felt like I was doing all the things the HowNOT2 crew would definitely say was a bad idea.  I didn’t kill anyone, but I may have scared the s#*t out of them!

Our first weekend was at Borenore, a 4½ hour drive for me – but I had one of our beginners, Vamsi, with me so it wasn’t boring, he’s a very entertaining conversationalist.

The plan was for us to start at the Borenore Reserve and visit The Arch, then head on to some minor caves, check out a new one and then find some obscure ones.  The group was large so Rod and I looked after the beginners (Vamsi, Scott, Chyein & Jimmy), the other members (Jim, Kathy & John, Marcia, and Garry) were doing Tunnel and Cathedral cave (Cathedral was only for experienced people).  On Sunday, the beginners would do Tunnel cave.

The Arch always delivers – anyone can go there, you can’t get lost and there are heaps of small passages to explore. I suggested Vamsi (who’d been there before) show the other beginners (Chyein, Scott and Jimmy) around (photo Garry K Smith)

Vamsi in a small chamber poking his head out, John G taking a photo and Garry Smith taking a photo of John!

Garry taking a photo of me taking a photo (lol).

The beginners and some of the experienced cavers exiting the hole in the rock (not much to see there – but a bit of an adventure).

After the Arch, we headed over to the track to Tunnel Cave.  We were on a mission to check out BN71, I had been told on a previous trip that it was a good spot for a vertical cave that could be downclimbed.  Sounded like a great opportunity to see how they went downclimbing. On the way, we poked our heads into two minor caves, BN29, BN51 and BN93 – none of which you’d ever go into a second time, they were just holes in the cliff (lol) – but good experience for a first timer.

When we got to BN71, we found 3 entrances … one that was covered in blackberries, one that had a dodgy looking downclimb, and this big hole. So, I had Jim go down the hole and see how it looked – whether or not the beginners could abseil in and climb out the downclimb hole. He reported back that it was definitely a no-go – so, against my better judgement I decided that the beginners could abseil down to see what was there.

In my defense, Vamsi had abseiled/prusiked before, Jimmy was a canyoning leader and I’d trained both Scott and Chyein to abseil. So, down they went. It was Chyein’s first effort at prusiking though – she did really, really well although found it exhausting. Probably not a good idea to have her prusik for the first ever time (definitely a HowNOT2 moment).

Same thing for Scott, he did really well for his first time into a real cave. Both of them nailed it.

After we finished up with the vertical stuff, we headed over to Verandah Cave to do some cave cleaning – spraying water (we collected the water out of the creek) onto graffiti that bogans had drawn on the roof of the cave using burned sticks (charcoal).  We had taken spray bottles and some scrubbing brushes, so made short work of the graffiti and then headed back to our accommodation for the evening – some pretty tired people!

Next morning the experienced group went to do Cathedral Cave and the beginners, Rod and I headed to Tunnel Cave which the other group had done the day before.  This cave can only be accessed between November 1 and May 1 (due to being a bat hibernation cave during winter).

My cunning plan was to enter from the exit (easy to get to) and go all the way to the entrance, then return back (a bounce trip – avoiding the walk overland to the entrance and seeing the cave twice).  Turned out the cave was harder than I remembered so when we got to the entrance we climbed out – and returned overland – otherwise we might still be in the cave, that’s how long it took.

I had done this cave a couple of years ago and thought it was dead easy for beginners. Wow, your memory isn’t as good after a few years, there were some real challenges for me – I spent the whole trip worrying about the beginners (needlessly it turned out). Here’s Scott bridging over a 2m drop.

This is a photo of John G (from the more experienced group) in Tunnel, we’d been told not to go into the streamway as there was a lot of calcite formations (forget the right name – rafts or rifts?) floating and wasn’t a good idea to disturb them.  Consequently, we took great lengths to not walk in the streamway – doing some dodgy moves on my part.  Then when we got back to the Reserve and told the ranger how we’d taken such steps to avoid the calcite – he said, “ah that wouldn’t have mattered, the first big rainfall and they’ll all be washed out of the cave into the creek!”

Rod bridging over another drop.

Rod assisted us all down this drop, he’s helping Marcia here, Vamsi and Scott went over the top – I entertained everyone when it was my turn by stepping on Rod’s shoulder as I couldn’t quite reach the other side of the channel.

A few rock piles to negotiate our way through.

And a squeeze that Vamsi found in a side passage. Good experience for beginners to go through a small horizontal squeeze.

Chyein coming through the squeeze.

Once we were through Tunnel, we headed back to the vehicles and then had an early start home.  The three absolute beginners Chyein, Scott and Jimmy took to caving like ducks to water, nothing fazed them, even me sending them down their first vertical cave.  I have high hopes for them to do some more challenging caves.  Vamsi, after this trip, probably can’t be called a beginner now – he was really good in all the caves so am looking forward to challenging him a bit more.

My next trip was to Glenrock – this is a property that we cannot access unless we join up with a NHVSS trip, so we decided to go over the Anzac LWE.  I’d asked Rod (who would be the MSS leader) if there were horizontal caves there.  He assured me that there were.  When I questioned him after we’d all arrived, turns out that horizontal is another word for “a vertical descent not using a rope!”  OMH – I had three absolute beginners there (and Vamsi), how was I going to manage this?

So, Friday afternoon I set up a rope off the branch of a tree and we showed them how to go up a rope (all the other coaching that I usually do for SRT prusiking would have to wait for a practice day!).  They cottoned onto it pretty quickly and April, Amelia (April’s daughter), and Scott did multiple ascents (being lowered down once they’d prusiked to the top as I’d set up a releasable anchor and a pully system).  Not having them attend a practice day first was definitely a HowNOT2 moment – and I did apologise to them profusely.

Saturday morning, we’re all getting ready to go down GR1 – Figtree cave. Whilst we’d taught them prusiking the day before, today they would give laddering a go – descending <10m on a wire rope with a top belay (so if they slipped they’d be safe). Getting their gear on.

Vamsi on his first ever ladder ascent, right hand placement, and right foot placement, one foot going into the front with your toes, the other foot going in via the back door using your heal. Not easy!

April on the abseil down – she’d use the ladder to climb back up. This was her first abseil into a cave.

Matt, looking like he’s enjoying climbing the ladder … I hate ladders with a passion – I abseiled down the rope and prusiked up (good practice for me anyway).

The next cave GR5 was a simple prusik in and out – Vamsi at the bottom of the pitch, there was nothing down the bottom, simply a large chamber (nothing to see here!).

And the final cave for the day GR2 – I was the one who abseiled down first – sort of creepy abseiling down first, you never know what you’ll find (like a snake!), again not much of a chamber at the bottom, enough space for 6 of us and then we all (except Vamsi who decided to climb – attached to a rope cause he thought he could!) prusiked out.  The prusik was down beside the roots of a large fig tree (see the roots in the top rh corner, looks like a tree trunk but it’s a root).

Matt at the entrance after prusiking up – looks like he’s having fun. He’s probably just happy to be at the end of the hard prusik – I struggled a bit – definitely another HowNOT2 cave.

Everyone was pretty much worn out by the end of the day – but perked up when it got to dinner time, Cathi and Rod OB had worked all afternoon cooking over the campfire with camp ovens and roasted lamb and vegies!

April’s photo of the Glenrock campsite, a shed that Brian R had built with the approval of the land-owners, there’s a couple of tanks that hold water and a box to store gear in that’s left at the camp. Where you can see us sitting is the campfire – and the wood around the camp is plentiful. The sunsets are lovely and it’s one of my favourite campsites, pity it’s 4½ hours away!

Beautiful walk over to the area where we’d be caving. Love the grass trees (photo April).

Sunday morning we headed over to another area to do GR114 and GR18 – and another cave, which Jordan went down, but about 5m from the top of the cave, the bats that lived there started getting agitated, so Jordan decided that we wouldn’t go down there and stress the bats, so we moved on to another cave.

The next cave was Death Trap GR114, Cathi and Helen (a spider scientist accompanying us) went down first and I followed Helen. I wasn’t at all impressed – it was really tight and you had to downclimb for about 10-15m all the way feeling that you were going to slip and get caught up on sharp rocks. April and Amelia followed me down, we each had to direct the person behind us on how to get down safely.  What was I thinking taking beginners into this! And then we got to the first chamber, we waited there for Cathi until she said we could move forward.  April and I were progressing when Helen (who was now behind us) said “I can’t get my lighter to work” – translate this as “I think we’ve got CO².”  Mmmm, that’s not good.  Straight away I noticed that both April and I were having breathing difficulties – we were both out of breath which didn’t reflect the small amount of effort we were expending just sitting there.  So, we turned around and Amelia, April and I headed out.  Once we got up a little higher in the cave our breathing returned to normal – but the climb out was annoying, I kept getting caught up on sharp bits of rock!

We decided that it was safe for the boys (Vamsi and Matt) to go down, but not past the spot where the CO² was (it’s heavier than normal air and was further down the cave).  Vamsi going down.

Me taking a photo of Vamsi getting out.

Matt is very happy to be getting out of this cave! The downclimb is a little challenging.

We then headed over to G18 – West Gate.  April and Amelia decided that they’d had enough for the day so they headed off.  That left the Hard Core group so we all headed down into the cave.  It was pretty straight forward a simple abseil down (I think I went first), and a prusik out.  The only thing I can remember about this cave was that it has a bit of a rock bridge at the top (hence its name after the West Gate Bridge that had collapsed around the time they found the cave.

The Hard Core group – l-r Jordan (photographer), Rod OB, Cath HH, Vamsi, Matt, Rod S, me and Helen. By this time the only beginners remaining were Matt and Vamsi. We did have a solid group of experienced cavers backing me up, so even if something had gone wrong, I wouldn’t have to “save anyone” lol.

So, the two trips were completed but not without the help of some amazing cavers … who were my safety net if things went pear-shaped … Rod S (of course who was the nominal leader for each weekend), Garry S, John G, Jim C, (Borenore), Rod OB, Cathi HH, Brian R and Jordan who is a legend and helped me out in more ways than I can record (lol).

I’m pretty sure we have some keen cavers now, they’re not afraid of being underground, didn’t blink at the squeezes (didn’t love them to death though), and took prusiking and laddering in their stride.  Thanks to you all for making the trip worthwhile.