Attendees: Phil, Jason, Josh, Joshua Callow, Cathy, Ruby, Nate and Jae
Josh was first to arrive on a Friday 13th afternoon and set up camp at a fairly damp Micalong Creek and managed to get a nice little fire going.
He was joined by Phil around 10 pm and shortly afterwards Jason plus traveling caravan with Ruby and her boys showed up.
Saturday morning dawned cold grey and overcast but that didn’t stop us staying in bed. By 9 am though Joshua Callow had arrived from Yarrangobilly and was keen to master the finer points of SRT.
With a rope hanging from the closest tree and anchored to a moveable picnic table he was soon practicing prussik/abseil changeovers. By 10 am Cathy arrived and the tea billy having run out we decided to head off and do some caving.
Cathy, Josh, Joshua, Jason and Phil started down at Dip to check out the closed off series 2, 65’ and 100’ entrances. Then we went to look for the Dip Series 4 Extension/Gong Room entrance. It looks like someone is running regular commercial trips into Gong because we found a short extension ladder up the hill with chain and padlock. We used the ladder to enter a small hole about 2m wide with a 2 m pitch which some members of the party thought was the Gong entrance. Once the 5 of us were all in the hole we explored it thoroughly and found that it had very little in the way of dark zone and went about 2 m in every direction before choking off. Shortly afterwards the proper Gong entrance was found – about 10m away. This time with a 6 m pitch which we entered via the extension ladder. BTW the ladder was customized and had one leg cut shorter to fit into a special spot on the uneven cave floor.
The passage from the pitch slopes down and a duck under to the left leads to a small rocky chamber. A low passage to the left (east) goes into some damp crawls, while following the passage to the west goes into a long, high ceilinged narrow rift with very rock large slabs taking up any available floor space. As the end of the rift is approached a tricky 1.5m climb up over some flowstone leads to a flowstone slope with ceiling coming down to close it off. I didn’t notice any breeze but about an hour or so later Jason and Joshua went to have a look and reported considerable airflow. Interestingly this small area is shown on the Jennings map of Dip as unsurveyed cave.
A few metres back from the climb a duck under to the south leads into a small room with a knotted rope up flowstone which leads into a spacious chamber with some good roof decoration. Jason, Joshua and Phil explored this large rockfall area through to the Gong Room proper. Lots of large blocks to negotiate and some very nice roof decoration. Cathy and Josh meanwhile explored the other leads off the entrance pitch area and had a quick look at the first chamber in Gong Room.
It was 3 pm by the time we exited Series 4. Not sure where the time went. We headed down to the Punchbowl reserve to have a late picnic lunch and and then decide what to do with the rest of the day.
After lunch we trogged up and went and had a look at the Dogleg resurgence – which was wet. Looked into Dogleg entrance – which had a large puddle visible just inside so we decided to give it a miss. On the way up Punchbowl Hill Joshua treated himself to a through trip of Anemone cave WJ26-27. We then spent about an hour wandering around Signature Cave including a visit to the lower levels. Finally we went and had a look at Punchbowl entrance pitch to decide what gear we would need for a trip on Sunday morning. By now time was getting on towards 6 pm so we headed downhill, resisting temptation to get wet and muddy in Dogleg and went back to Micalong Creek for a beer and dinner followed by time around a warm campfire.
Sunday morning was a little warmer and by 9.15 am Jason, Josh, Joshua and Phil were ready to head off for a quick trip into Punchbowl. The Punchbowl antechamber was damper and more slippery than usual and it was going to be a quick trip so we decided against SRT off the top ledge, instead settled for the usual abseil in and ladder out off the main sloping pitch. Once down into Pitch Chamber we set off for a quick grovelling trip into the lower level, arriving back in Pitch Chamber. We then opted for the main level route and very quickly found ourselves in the Ballroom and then Far Chamber where an active bat roost ensured plenty of guano. Edie’s Grotto had turned into a bit of a cess pit but that didn’t stop Jason and Joshua from testing out the sh(mud)it.
Way back we ventured into the Mezzanine and attempted to climb the Slippery Dips up into Loxin Chamber. Jason and Joshua easily negotiated the climb and Phil got almost there except for the last bit where his feet kept shooting out from under on wet limestone despite having aid of wet greasy handline.
Time was getting on by now and so we decided to make a move back to Pitch Chamber and laddered back out of the cave.
It looks like someone is running guided trips into Punchbowl as well as Gong. Josh noticed 3 extension ladders off in the bush near the Punchbowl entrance. Also we noticed some unusually placed ring bolts on the ladder pitch – likely used for securing extension ladders.
Back at the car we found a note from Cathy who had followed us to Punchbowl for some photography and bird watching. The time on the note indicated we had missed her by 5 minutes.
Josh and Joshua headed off home whilst Phil stopped and had some lunch. Jason went back to Micalong Creek for lunch and in the afternoon brought Ruby and the boys back for an adventure in Signature Cave!
