Post date: Jun 17, 2012 4:36:04 PM

15th June

Team: Gaelan, Shauna, Petie

Time: 3 hours

A large frothy brown stream was crashing into the entrance after the recent rains and flowing noisily down through the cave. The first hour was passed playing around with cameras, after this was over we followed the stream all the way down to the choke, where part of the water slid off down by the left hand wall and most crossed over the the right hand side to flow away into the boulders. I had a brief look at the right hand side dig, it's very dry and stable though tight and awkward, would need much capping and heavy rock breaking to make a way forward. Gaelan, afflicted with a stomach complaint, scurried off to the surface to try and avoid polluting the cave with vomit leaving myself and Shauna to go at the muddy dig at the left hand side. Here there is a solid left hand wall, a large boulder to the right and jammed between them is a sandstone boulder. These leave a 75cm square window from one which scoops out a slushy mix of wet mud and boulders. This is constantly replenished by the digface collapsing towards you, a veritable conveyor belt of fresh digging spoil appears at your lap. Gaelan and Eabha dug all this out once before, it all collapsed in from above again.

After 1.5 hours we'd opened up a sizable void into which it was possible to cautiously crawl into and feel the gentle draft coming out. Looking up you saw a roof composed of slushy boulder mix. Just before leaving I poked the crowbar into this and brought down an avalanche of spoil, completely infilling the dig again. Cackling like a manaic, I scurried back. Jolly fun dig. Next dig will be to clear all this out again and keep shifting spoil, hopeful it will reveal some stable boulders beyond.

29th June

Team: Gaelan, Petie

Time: 3 Hours

Another large stream flowing into the choke at Coolarkan, evidence, were it ever needed, that this is one of the wettest Junes on record. The digging entertained as usual, more large boulders and slush tumbling through the digging window. Two particularly large boulders were manhandled back to the streamway and the now redundant scaff was folded back out of the way. All of this served to open up a view of an ascending drippy void into which we cautiously peered before scampering back to avoid more cascading boulder slush. At the end of the energetic three hour digging session we could at last get a good look into the void, though we dared not crawl in. The void is large, could take two or three people standing up in it. The left hand wall is perfectly solid, the right hand wall is mainly a large sofa-sized boulder sitting on top of boulder slush. It chokes in the same boulder slush straight ahead. Looking directly upwards however, you can see up almost 5m to the solid roof of the passage, though I'm not sure how you could safely access this, you'd probably be free climbing on dodgy loose boulders. It looks to open up a bit at the top though, and may lead over the choke. The fun boulder-shifting bit is over for now. The next dig will probably involve a bit more thought and caution. And scaff. Lots of scaff.

Petie

Gaelan's Photos can be found here.