…Jenolan Caves: Adventure caving…

Wow what a weekend. Today I abseiled into the sink, scrambled down the plughole and then wriggled through the S Bend to an exhilarating finish the other side.

If you're wondering no I haven't been hallucinating or gone a bit crazy in the land of make believe but took on the challenge of the 'Plughole' when I went adventure caving at the Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains.

You enter at the mountain top, via a short abseil into a sinkhole, you explore the Elder cave to its conclusion by negotiating a series of climbs, crawls and squeezes with the only escape being through the infamous "S Bend" squeeze.

I've never gone caving or potholing before so this was a real adventure for me. I was quite concerned about how I'd cope in the confined spaces, although I'm not claustrophobic in any way shape or form the idea of crawling through tight, cramped, dark, damp spaces has always freaked me out just a little so this was quite a challenge for me. Being one to push my limits I wanted to see how I'd handle it and was eager to try something new.

I absolutely loved it. It was so much fun scrambling over the cave surfaces, getting messy and dirty as you squeezed through tight gaps and tunnels into different chambers and negotiating your way through the cave system. We had great guides and a really good group so it made much more fun and interesting. At one point we sat in one of the chambers and turned off all our lights, the darkness was unbelievable and they reckon after 12hours of being stuck down there in those conditions you'd start hallucinating and go slightly crazy… good job I'm already a bit nuts.

I'm so pleased I took on the challenge as this weekend marked 18 months since my operation. Talk about a complete contrast, after my op I couldn't sit up without assistance or without causing myself great pain by being stubborn doing it myself and when I was on the mend I could only shuffle along at a snails pace. Now I'm off exploring the globe getting involved in adventure activities.

Whilst at the Jenolan Caves I also got to view the Wonder of the Underworld by going on a guided tour of the Lucas Cave. This was quite interesting and informative but by no means as exciting as the adventure caving. Seeing the wilder, undeveloped areas of the environment was so much more fun than following the paths and barriers of the civilised tour.

Photo: The Broken Column in the Lucas Caves (in true Australian style everything is imaginatively named to be exactly what it is... its like the gameshow Catchphrase... "say what you see Mr Chips!")

[Next blog entry: Sydney Friday January 25th 2008]