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Foreword

ANDYSEZ  Episode  1     (Newsletter  4, December 1989, 3pp)

Kent has asked me to write a regular ANDYSEZ column in the ACKMA newsletter. As the newsletter only comes out twice a year (hint) this will obviously not make for dynamic reading if we expect it to be a 'Dear Dorothy Dix' column. As I have already enough topics up until the end of 1995 we need some way of you out there in cave management-land changing my priorities. What I suggest is that we ask Kent to allow two pages per issue - to be made up of 1 - 1.5 pages of Spatements and then a question/topic from you mob for the next issue. How does this sound? We can also have guest SEZers from time to time as you wish or as I can unload the onerous task!

Topics which have come to mind so far include:

Episode One :

By Motor Charabanc Through the Wilds of Tasmania - or Hours of Exercise in the Alps with 'Doughnuts' Kiernan

Tasmania, which is a very strong candidate for the next ACKMA conference site after WA, has much of interest for the cave manager with a bewildering array of cave areas, tenures and managers. However, there are unifying features; firstly the caves are full of cold water, secondly they are at the end of steep, muddy tracks in rainforest with slippery logs abounding (more on these later). Thirdly, and most importantly, they must be found at night with lunch to be had only after 1600 hours. Addiction to Mars Bars is essential for successful visits especially if you are to maintain an average of 2.8 caves a day for nine days.

Kevin and the Forestry Commission invited me to visit Tasmania to discuss approaches to researching the impacts of logging and other land use on caves and karst processes, to talk about user impacts on caves and to discuss cave management generally. Thus I flew to the Great Southern Island on a Friday afternoon fit and well - and returned a broken man to the Northern Offshore Island ten days later through the teeth of the pilots dispute. I must say early on that it only rains in Tasmania at night, when one is in a cave or car or when one is in the only place where there is no protection from the wind - e.g. the Vale of Belvoir - in all other places and times the sun shines!

Our first foray was to scenes of devastation in the Junee-Florentine area - however without logging very few caves would be known. Cunningly avoiding all the vertical caves we found a new cave suitable for Kevin's project - except that it had already been logged and had been subject to what is known as a regeneration burn. Several rolls of Kodachrome were expended on Flipper's behalf on fine examples of the impact of fire on karren. Welcome Stranger, a fine horizontal cave with splendid morphology and good speleothems, was next - I got wetter than Kevin or Albert Goede - silly holes in the stream bed.

The next day was on to Queenstown via Growling Swallet and Bubs Hill with many other diversions. The Swallet is marvelous with the snowmelt stream cascading over a series of waterfalls and in canyons. We did half the cave depthwise (<5% of length) - hope the photos come out!! Bubs Hill at night is different.... as is flashgun photography of holes in road batters. Kevin fell down a couple of holes before losing me in the bush; he was also disappointed that I wouldn't take pictures of silt derived from road collapse but there was enough mud on the camera by that time. Before arriving in Queenstown too late to get a feed we visited a series of tree stumps overwhelmed by glacial deposits over 730,000 years ago but looking as if they had died in the last decade - KK has cooked a jaffle over a fire burning this wood.

The next day saw us up early on a moraine which had much of interest including an encounter with the Spectre of Brocken (see Casteret's Ten Years Under the Earth, p 113 - Penguin Edition). After much gadding about we arrived at Mount Cripps (Macintosh River) where there is much karst possibly awaiting logging. The roading problems are immense. We visited two caves (on separate long tracks ...) where I had my first acquaintance with Hickmania troglodytes which is a wonderful large spider - not as large as our recent NZ experiences but possessing considerable grandeur... more Kodachrome. The caves are well decorated, very wet and there are many undiscovered caves.

On to Mole Creek via the Vale of Belvoir. They are certainly dolines but don't tell Kevin I said so. A rolling landscape of open grassland - very scenic - and a near blizzard - and near hypothermia. I can totally recommend the Western Tiers Tea Rooms as a caving base at Mole Creek.... they even turn the electric blankets on for you when you come home after dark!

Gunns Plains must be one of the most under-rated tourist caves is Australasia. Under-promoted and out of the way but well under-lit although the railings, tracklights and switchboxes can be obtrusive here as at Mole Creek. As is often the case the stream adds a dimension or two to the experience. After getting our feet wet up to the neck we continued on up the streamway - a potential tourist cave here too. On to Montagu in the far north-west (of Tasmania) where KK wanted my views on a large bone deposit being trampled by visitors. The water was freezing and navigating a lilo amongst the stals with your face in the water is certainly different - KK walked on the floor 5-6 metres below last time... he says the cave is better decorated now - he also knows how the solution notch just below the roof comes about! What I don't know is how they find the caves in the first place... and why in some instances. Just to keep the average up on the way back to Mole Creek we visited two sea caves used for millennia by Aborigines at Rocky Cape and then onto Honeycomb Cave at Caveside (to give Faye time to turn on the lecky blankets!).

The next day was spent in visiting Little Trimmer, Croesus and Rubbish Heap Caves. The former are two outflow caves of quite different character; the latter a short but very active stream sink. Trimmer is one of KK's potential study sites so much time was spent by all disagreeing with Spatements: a tall narrow cave well decorated and offering much potential for research but complicated by various 'political' problems. Croesus is a long cave with a very substantial seepage fed stream saturated and therefore actively depositing splendid calcite floors, rimstones and cascades. Well worth a visit for the floor alone but there are many other speleothems; this cave may be used for commercial adventure cave activities which will require careful monitoring but it is more self-healing than most caves.

To ensure that the average was kept up the evening was spent in Marakoopa and King Solomon caves. These two tourist caves are again quite different in character. Chester Shaw and his cohorts are doing a fine job of renovating Marakoopa in particular. Fancy a tourist cave with two streams... King Solomon is quite different and difficult to guide, I would imagine, because of its narrowness; there is a possibility of a second entrance which would ease the problems.

Thursday was an official rest day with only three caves attempted. The world depth record was given a nasty fright in the never-before entered "Dons Revenge" but as we had to be back for lunch we only went about 10 metres. However that had already involved several waterfalls - and enthusiasm waned rapidly. Some time was spent surface trogging in the sun.

Well to Kubla Khan .... it is indescribable and I was reduced to mumbling on a number of occasions. Whether it could become a tourist cave is another matter. Problems start with philosophy, move rapidly to access and parking and then start in the cave with considerable vertical range, instability?, violation of formation and so on. But it is certainly a must for ignorant Northern Islanders. The range, colour and scale of stalagmites, flowstones and rimstones, helictites and shawls is utterly amazing. In fact all the flowstones at Mole Creek?

Another rest day talking about research/monitoring and so on and then off to Exit Cave - as we had to be back to relieve the baby sitter we didn't frighten the world length record much. Again, one of the caves of Australia but unfortunately, with Kubla, showing many impacts of use. The sheer size of passageways and vertical entrances, together with much moon milk/lublinite or whatever the hell it is, is most impressive. The new track to Exit is very easy - even if you fall off a log and tear your knee ligaments on the way home.

This horribly anecdotal account has clearly not properly described this wonderful trip to an amazing caving destination. Even a week in bed and weeks of physio with a busted knee has not offset the marvelous experience. Thanks Kevin, but I could have done without the cold as well...