Who
went: Brendan
Heywood, Peter Heyning, Bronwyn
Gould, Tim Watt, Karen Marshall, Peter
Stonestreet, Hamish Caddy, Bronwyn Turner and Family.
Glen Dhu Caves is just near Timor Caves about 2.5 hours south of Armidale
near Murrurundi.
We intended to go down on friday night but we out instead and turned
up late Saturday morning. The others were already in the Main cave just
near the shearers quarters where we were staying. We basically got there
just in time for lunch.
After lunch we headed north over the hill to another cave with some
great horizontal squeezes throught smooth limestone. Unfortunately further
down the air was a bit bad (why won't the matches light??) so we had
to get out of there.
Next was Deception Drop which is just a ladder going down about 10
meters. At the bottom is a very tight verticle squueeze for another
8 meters or so which we didn't really wont to attempt without some veritcle
gear.
So next was the Moore Lake cave. It was two entrances and requires
some swimming and you need to duck your head under water in a few places.
We couldn't get the top gate open and it was raining so most of the
crew went back to camp. Hamish, Tim, Bron and Me headed in anyway. The
water level was good but freezing as expected. Wet overalls are too
heavy so we stripped and waded in wearing thermals or less. Some of
the formations are pristine and the cave is still active so it is important
not to touch a lot of the walls. The highlights would have to be the
Z squeeze which has a duck under at the end and the Maze which is a
large section of cracks in a grid layout. While I was in the Maze, Tim
and Bron exited with Hamish leading them out but they forgot to tell
me what was going on so I was stuck in the Maze for a few anxious minutes
yelling into the darkness. Very cool. Then Hamish and I did a bit more
exploring and eventually dragged our selves out to find it raining more
and very dark. Then through the cold showers at the shack and into some
food.
Next day was wet. It rained fairly consistantly through the night.
A lot of people went back to the main cave for some early morning squeezes.
Then Bron and I got some gear and headed to Deception drop while Tim
lead the others through the Moore Lake Cave.
Deception drop was running with water down both side making it look
a great much scarier that the previous day.
After much grunting and
groaning and squeezing I finally gave up. Bron got past the squeeze
were I was but has having difficulty climbing back out. Exhausted and
beaten we dragged the gear out and headed back to camp.
This weekend was probably the most fun caves I have been in and I
can't wait to get back.