Finally the Borenore trip is behind me

BORENORE RESERVE, NSW – 22-23 November 2025
Organising this trip was challenging as the goals were varied.  Initially the trip was conceived to repair some broken stalactites in Cathedral Cave.  Then, around the virtual campfire at Ning Bings, a case of scope creep took over and the trip ended up as an opportunity for three different cave clubs to network over the weekend. Sounds good? But trying to manage so many people and the permits was a nightmare.

Twelve cavers turned up with varying goals:

• Garry, Alison, Justin and Denis (and Jack from NPs) would be going into Cathedral Cave and attempt to match up approximately 50 pieces of stalactites to broken stals through the cave (broken by vandals around 2018). Of the 50 pieces, they were able to match up 6 (and that took all day!).  On Sunday we took Jack from NPs into the cave and he supervised us gluing one Stal (this was part of our National Parks consent document).  I didn’t enter the cave until Sunday.
• The rest of the group were to go into the first chamber of Cathedral. They also got to see the entrance where the locked gate is and determine whether or not they thought they’d fit down it.  Most said yes, when I went down the next day I’m thinking that they might get stuck!
• After Cathedral, the rest of the group did some surface trogging to get GPS locations for approximately 14 caves (we had a rough idea of where they were) and then we’d photograph the tag & entrance and record a brief description (so future leaders will know whether or not they are worthwhile visiting)
• Garry had identified a “dig” on the last trip and we received NPWS consent to do a 1m test dig to determine whether or not it was viable for a future full-on dig (it’s not LOL)
• Surface trogging can be a bit boring if you’re not finding anything so I organised a bounce trip through Tunnel Cave for those who were interested (thank you Rob & Andrew for guiding).
• And finally the surface trogging group did a trip through Arch (with Vamsi given the opportunity to guide the 2 new members through all the passages he’d found on two previous trips – ably supervised by Andrew as Vamsi is a beginner.)

So, a lot of goals to cram into one weekend, right?  It was full on.

Stunning weather, the whole group making their way to Cathedral Cave.

ISS member Sharon is a beginner and I blithely sent her down the entrance, asking those below her to guide her through this bit at the top. I didn’t recall what she had to do for the rest of the way down. When I did it myself on Sunday I was horrified that I sent her down, it was really scary for me! But she survived and was actually very chill about it.

Rod and Gavin (surface trogging) checking out one of the holes that we were looking for (not much cave found, no dark zone).

Another tag/cave that we found, this one had a big log in the entrance, Vamsi and Trish were determined to pull the log out, which they did thanks to Vamsi’s strength, but the hole was too small to go into.

This rift was another one of the tags/caves that we found, Trish looking down into it. Vamsi did go down to the bottom (about 15m of passage), and said it went further but it was vertical.

Sunday, and this is the entrance that I sent the beginners down, I’m at the bottom (taking the photo) but had to be guided down to where Denis is standing. It had rained over night and the rocks were way slippery.  I was dreading having to make my way back up.

Garry (on Sunday) at the locked gate. Apparently, sometime in 2018, vandals had used an angle grinder to break into the cave. So, OSS put in a “bomb proof” gate, even when you have a key it’s difficult to get in!

Garry entering the hole and “passing the gate”, he’s standing at the bottom of the hole.

And here’s Garry kneeling down to get through to the passage on the right. If you think this was difficult to get down, at least you had gravity on your side, let me tell you it wasn’t easy getting up out of this hole!

We’re now down in the main chamber (there’s another one further on but it’s difficult to get in and out of). This image gives you an idea of how big the chamber is (big for Borenore but small for most other cave areas).

This was the first time I’d been past the locked gate in Cathedral and I have to say, the amount of formations/decorations in the cave was stunning and definitely not expected.

More formations.

Lots of helictites, just these formations alone would be enough to warrant the locked gate. This was just a small sampling of the helictites.

More beautiful formations. This is interesting as the cave is only about 20m under the surface.

and more nice flowstone.

So, you can just see the pink tapes, the tape has a number which corresponds to one of the broken stals.

Lots of straws.

I really liked this formation, looks like cave coral, but the crystals are sharper.

All of the 50 stals (or parts thereof) set out so that possible matches could be found. Garry (in the blue) is organising the stals that have been matched up. Out of the 50 pieces only 6 were matched up with a mate.  It was very time consuming, Alison was telling me how they had to lay down on the floor of the cave and try to see broken parts.

Obviously, I made it out of the cave.  It was easy getting to the standing up point at the gate, but I needed a lot of body strength to launch myself up and out of the hole.  Alison and I went up the rock pile together, it wasn’t as scary going up as it was going down, although if my legs were just a little longer it would have been dead easy.

We all rendezvoused back at the car park at 12.30pm and were heading off on our 3 or 4 hour trip back home (that was the tedious part).

A trip has now been planned for next April to return and repair those 6 stals.  I probably wont go on that trip, I’ll leave it for the four (or five) original repairers – AND I don’t want to go down that entrance again LOL.  The repairs will probably be ongoing as other “matches” are found on future trips.

The trog group found all the caves that we were looking for plus another 5 in a different location.  This is another ongoing project as there are roughly 100 caves on the reserve and adjoining properties that haven’t got GPS co-ordinates recorded, so hours of caving pleasure ahead of us.  Also, the trog group identified 2 potential digs for the future (all we need is a permit).

Big thanks to the group (too many names to list LOL), it was a great weekend networking and wandering around in the bush.  Hope you can join me on the next one.