YARRANGOBILLY – July 17 – 22, 2017
A week spent with international cavers was almost a blog disaster when I discovered I’d left my camera at home! Thankfully there were plenty of other photographers there to save the day (thanks to Cathi H-H, Sabrina, Dirk and Joxz!). Here’s Beth scraping ice off her windscreen, it was that cold!
When Beth approached me to be part of the Yarrangobilly field trip transport team, I really didn’t know what was in store, other than picking up International cavers from Sydney and transporting them to and from Yarrangobilly (a 1,100k round trip from the Central Coast).
The cavers were here for the International Speleo Conference to be held at Penrith Panthers from 24 – 29 July and Canberra Speleos and MSS joined forces offering pre or post conference field trips. John Brush (CSS) and Beth (MSS), did all the preparation, I was just along for the ride (so to speak). I was absolutely blown away by the amount of organisation and planning that John and Beth did in the 12 months prior to this week! We all stayed at Caves House and all meals were catered by CSS members (those of us who were part of the support crew paid for their own accommodation and food). Those CSS ladies have missed their calling in life, fabulous food, provided on time every day when the weary cavers returned to Caves House. The cave leaders … John, Beth, David S, and other CSS members, led the international guests through some of NSW’s best caves.
Beth, Cathi H-H, David S and I picked up our cavers from various locations in Sydney and then drove down to Yagby, stopping off at various cafes along the way to regroup and drink copious amounts of coffee. The trip down was uneventful – although trying to get all the gear for four people into the MazCar was a major operation!
I had trouble getting out of O’Riordan Road so was behind David and Cathi, but caught up with them at Marulan. We then headed down to The Long Track Pantry at Jugoing (where the hell is that?) for lunch (photo: Cathi H-H).
Our next stop was Tumut for fuel, and a stop off at the bottle-o where we picked up lots of wine and beer (l – r, Sabrina, Andreas and Martin from Switzerland … my passengers plus Leanne and Blake from USA … David’s passengers) (Photo: Cathi H-H)
We arrived at Yagby at around 4pm – after an uneventful trip down. This is Caves House at Yagby … the single story East & West Wing was built in 1901 and the two story wing in 1917. Beth and I stayed in the 1917 section on the second floor – two interconnecting rooms with an ensuite – absolutely luxury!
Once everyone had arrived (10 International guests and 17 support staff), we had happy hour in the main lounge of the 1917 wing … which set the tone for the whole weekend, great company, lots of wine and fabulous caves (Photo: Cathi H-H). The 1917 wing is heritage listed and NPWS spent over $2m restoring it to its full glory.
Great BBQ on Monday evening, followed by lots of wine and everyone surfaced next morning at 7am for breakfast. Everyone (except the catering staff) headed out to some of the show caves, but I took it easy for the morning then headed off with Dirk and Veronica (our leaders), Cathi H-H and Steve from the US for an afternoon at Old Inn cave which I’d never been to before.
Unbeknown to us, we accidentally parked at the wrong spot just off the highway (you can see the highway railing in the background). We suited up and set off, it was really, really cold.
We headed off in the right direction (l – r, me, Veronica and Steve), John had assured us that it was a short walk in … and after 3 weeks of painting, I was up for a “short walk in”. (photo: Cathi H-H)
The walk in proved a little longer than we thought (at this stage) and was a full-on bush bash … an interesting experience for US Steve but he maintained his sense of humour (photo Cathi H-H)
By now we’re at a cave … after battling hundreds of metres of blackberries (you can see the blackberry rifts in the background). But not the right cave! so we turned around and headed back, eventually finding the right way in but by this time I’d had enough of traipsing through blackberries so headed back to my car. The others persisted and eventually found the right cave! (Photo: Cathi H-H)
Next morning I signed up to do Restoration and East Deep Creek caves. Following my experience with Old Inn (I was really cold), I rugged up with extra thermals and my Gortex. There were two groups of 8, our group would do Restoration and then East Deep Creek and the other group would reverse it. We parked the cars and set off for the cave. In no time at all my feet and hands were frozen … I decided then and there that caving in the middle of winter so far south wasn’t a great idea and I’d take Thursday off and stay snug and warm at Caves House!
Driving up the fire trail to the highway, was really cool seeing the snow on the road and in the bush.
Snow in the bush as we walked down to the cave entrances (Photo: Joxz)
We’re down below the snow line now and on the fire trail. (Photo: Joxz)
In the do-line, the entry to Restoration is on the left in amongst some boulders. On the right there is an overhang which is where we had lunch. (Photo: Joxz)
From the entry chamber there is a bit of a climb down on a muddy bank. Dirk (our leader) set up a hand-line, ordinarily you wouldn’t need it but the mud was very slippery after some rain over the last few days (Photo: Joxz)
Restoration is a lovely cave, it has two distinct areas, this one over to the right with a lot of stalactites (Photo: Joxz)
And this section which has hundreds of straws from the ceiling, some of them 2 – 3m in length. This area is a “no-go” area because the straws are so fragile (photo: Joxz)
This is an overhang near Restoration where we stopped out of the rain for lunch. I’m trying to negotiate down the muddy bank here, wasn’t easy. There are bones in this cave and it was being used as an archaeological site (determining how old the site was) until some aboriginal artefacts were found, and it then became a sacred site and could only be researched by aboriginals.
After lunch we made our way over to East Deep Creek. I’ve visited this cave before and found a lovely pool (that I photographed), apparently they’ve had a dry winter because the pool was totally dried up. We had to go through a “clean” station, taking off muddy overalls and boots and putting clean shoes on to go further (which we did), again, last time I went there the water was running over all the formations and it was magic, this time there wasn’t any water and it wasn’t half as nice.
Coming out of East Deep Creek, we accidentally got onto the wrong side of the creek and had to do a lot of bush bashing to get to the fire trail. Turns out the second group had a similar experience, amazingly we met up on the fire trail at the same time.
That night Beth and I broke out the Frog Jigsaw puzzle that I’d thrown in at the last moment. Both Beth and I are jigsaw “tragics” but were delighted to discover that 50% of the group were also jigsaw-obsessed, sometimes it was hard finding a spare seat around the table. I spent Thursday helping in the kitchen, filling in more of the jigsaw or laying in bed reading … so relaxing!
On Friday John had organised a trip out to Cooleman Plain. This is a popular bushwalking area in the summer but the National Park is closed during winter. NPWS were kindly opening the gate for us then accompanying us to the karst area to check out Murray and Barber caves. This is an area I’d not been to before so was fortunate to get a place in the 2 vehicles we were allowed to drive in! I had rugged up with the works today, 2 sets of thermals, gloves, beanie and scarf plus a jacket, I was very warm which was necessary as snow had fallen again during the night.
We drove about 20k down Long Plain trail to the Cooleman area. The ranger stopped us at a corral where he explained about the Brumby problem. Apparently a few years ago (before the Canberra fires), there were only 60 Brumbies in this section of the Park. After the fires (with plenty of new juicy growth), the numbers have exploded and they estimate that there are now 6,000 Brumbies in the park. NPWS put out hay, salt and molasses to entice the horses into these corrals and when they get used to the corral (after visiting it a few times), then the gate closes and they are shipped off the Park property. NPWS can only do this in winter when food is scarce and they trap up to 90 at a time. In Canberra state they are allowed to shoot the horses, in NSW that’s not an option.
A stallion with his harem. When the colts are weaned, they are exiled from the group. John told us that when he first started coming to Cooleman, he’d see Brumbies maybe one trip out of ever 10 that he did. Nowadays, he sees 10 lots of Brumbies each trip (as we did). (Photo: Sabrina)
After driving to the end of the fire trail we parked our cars and walked down to the creek (l – r, Sabrina, Martin (both Swiss), Leanne (USA), the Ranger, and two others).
I’d always heard about Blue Water Hole and here it was, the water is blue because of the limestone in the area.
There were to be 3 river crossings like this (we would have had to do 5 but John knew a shortcut).
The way forward down the gorge, this would be a great place to come in the summer! Apparently there’s a large waterfall downstream in the gorge.
John’s short cut (cutting off 2 water crossings), it was a bit dicey, but you’d only get wet if you fell.
Another crossing!
Joxz (pronounced Yoss) from The Netherlands.
John our leader entering Barber Cave, still a lot of snow around, he’d never seen snow around like this before.
Just inside the cave there were icicles!
A nice climb down in the cave – (l – r Joxz and Leanne). (Photo: Sabrina)
There are four entry/exits to Barbers cave, here’s Joxz outside one of them (a big doline with lots of boulders that we walked past). (Photo: Sabrina)
Leanne (USA) exiting the cave.
You can see a spot of red, that’s the exit of the cave, quite high up.
As we were walking along to Murray cave, we came across this Brumby. It was incredibly tame, apparently during the summer months people feed them (much to the disgust of the Ranger).
He’s a stallion exiled from the group by the alpha male. He was healthy but looked as though he’d been rolling around in the mud. He was so tame that the Ranger had to shoo him away from us.
On the way to Murray’s cave we passed this cave – Cooleman (I think) – Andreas and Martin posing for the camera (Photo: Sabrina)
The entry to Murray’s cave (my favourite of the two). (Photo: Sabrina)
Getting a bit of a rundown just inside Murray’s cave by the NPWS Ranger. This is my sort of cave, big, no crawling and lots of formations. (Photo: Sabrina)
Pencil “autographs” from people who had visited the cave as early as 1919. Some may have been earlier (in the bottom lh corner) but there was calcite over the signature so you couldn’t read them. (Photo: Sabrina)
Really nice formation (with Leanne). (Photo: Sabrina)
At the end of Murray’s cave there is a sump (a pool), the water level goes up and down depending on the amount of water. There’s a lot of silt on some of the walls, so recently the water level has been about 2m higher than it is at this moment. (Photo: Sabrina)
Another nice formation (Photo: Sabrina)
This one is really cool too (Photo: Sabrina)
One of my favourite formations, looks like sharks teeth. (Photo: Sabrina)
We exited the cave and then walked further up the valley and then cross country to the vehicles. We changed out of our dirty caving gear and then headed for Yagby with a short side-trip to the Cooleman farm remains.
These farm buildings have been restored to their former glory and are very interesting. The house must have had about 4 or 5 rooms which is a lot for that era. The log structure was the cheese house.
On Friday we had our farewell dinner, and Saturday morning we had to clean everything up … a major operation. The Swiss contingent and I hopped in the car at 10am and followed Cathi and David up the highway, taking a little detour up a lovely valley. We stopped at David’s favourite café, the Merino at Gunning and then we dropped our passengers off at Penrith ready for the conference this week.
We’re catching up with them at the Conference Banquet on Friday night. It was a great week away (which I needed after all that painting I did in the last 3 weeks). It was a great opportunity to network with some cavers from other countries, made me envious though … there are so many great caves out there, wish I’d started caving 40 years ago!
Glad you got to Blue Waterholes. I plan to have a deeper look into Coolemon cave when I go in Nov.
Looks a great but cold trip
Yes, I’d heard of Blue Waterholes so was nice to see it. Cooleman Cave apparently isn’t that great but definitely Barber and Murray Caves are good to do, and both are open to the public. MSS is going down again, probably on a joint trip with CSS and will maybe do some other wild caves, plus I want to abseil the waterfall and explore the gorge more.
You are so brave!!!!
It looked so cold! I bet it was even colder when you are in a wet/damp cave!
The caves weren’t so cold, they’re actually quite warm, it’s the wet feet and hands that got me!
The most important part is the cafés which we visited:
Meridian Café Marulan,
Long Track Pantry Jugiong,
Kat’s Whisker’s Café Tumut,
Merino Café Gunning.
Not the caving? Yes, as Leanne said it was a Café Trip! All good places with great good, even if the gum-boots at one place were $129!
Marj and her recipes and helpers from CSS left all the professionals from those excellent eating places for dead, actually! I can’t remember EVER having been on a trip that was so well catered for. It was a real credit to everyone from CSS and all the hard work they put in organising it all.
Yes, it was, those poor women hardly had time to draw breath, up at 6am and worked all the way through to 8pm!