SCOTTS CAVE, TASMANIA: A CASE STUDY OF A NEGLECTED FORMER TOURIST CAVE
INTRODUCTION
While routes may be hardened and visitor behaviour maintained at acceptable levels during the period a commercial tourist operation is undertaken in a cave, too many caves have subsequently suffered extreme degradation due to a neglect of their management requirements once the operation closes down. The establishment of tourist operations in caves removes the shroud of geographical anonymity that often serves as the best, if inevitably temporary, form of protection available for most caves. A cave that has had its attractions widely advertised over a long term, and has had its location made conspicuous by signs, roads and tracks, has few prospects of escaping severe damage if it is effectively left open to all corners once tourism operations cease.
In northern Tasmania there are three principal examples of caves that have suffered this form of damage, namely Scotts Cave and Baldocks Cave at Mole Creek and Flowery Gully Cave north of Launceston. In each case there has been considerable damage by careless or vandalistic visitors. Interestingly, the cave at Flowery Gully may have suffered from post-closure internal abuse marginally less than has either Scotts or Baldocks due to it being accessible only by crawling through loose boulders following its entrance having been quarried for limestone. This paper reviews the present condition of Scotts Cave. It also visually compares the present condition of various parts of the cave prior to its being developed for tourism with the condition of the cave today, based on a comparison of historical photographs with a set of recent photographs of the same features.
SCOTTS CAVE
Scotts Cave is a small outflow stream cave formed by a presently-intermittent tributary of the Mole Creek. The cave is developed on two branches. The eastern branch is generally spacious, with a largest chamber of ~15m x 18m. This branch comprises ~150 m of accessible passage along the tourist route, together with some additional higher level passage. It contains only an ephemeral tiny stream, and retains some attractive speleothems. The western branch contains the principal cave stream and is less prolifically decorated except in some upper level passages. About 130m of passage is perennially accessible, but under drier conditions it is possible to traverse ~50-100m further up the stream passage to emerge from a swallet in a blind valley.
The cave was operated as a commercial tourism venture for 10 years from 1908 by the family who owned the farm on which it lay. The emergence of cave tourism in the Mole Creek area was facilitated by regular railway services that encouraged the development of guest houses in the township, 5 km from Scotts Cave (Skinner and Skinner 1973). Local farmers operated as guides for visitors wishing to ascend the slopes of the Great Western Tiers (Jetson 1989). Scotts Cave was lit by means of an acetylene generator installed just inside the cave entrance with upright burning jets and reflectors mounted in various parts of the cave. Discolouration of the speleothems by smoke from this lighting source appears to have figured significantly among the reasons for closure of the cave. Visitors entered virtually all of the perennially accessible cave. They waded up the streamway, which is floored by large cobbles and some rounded boulders, and came close to crawling in some parts of the eastern branch. Just beyond the Shrine a path has been excavated through flowstone into the underlying clastic fill, sensitively keeping to the outside margin of the chamber rather than cutting straight across the flowstone in the manner adopted in some other tourist caves.
Fending of speleothems was undertaken using wire netting, an idea that doubtless diffused southwards from the underground chicken coupes of Jenolan where netting was utilised from around 1879 (Holland 1989). In some areas of Scotts Cave barbed wire was also used for protective purposes. Better dating of the protective measures taken within the cave may be possible on the basis of the styles of netting wire and barbed wire utilised (e.g. Roycroft and Roycroft 1986).
PRESENT STATUS
The present condition of Scotts Cave is lamentable. Careless visitors and vandals that have visited the cave since it was closed have at various times contributed to breakage of speleothems, grafitti, lighting of campfires underground, the accumulation of beer bottles, drink cans, cigarette butts, paper, plastic litter and human excrement. The aroma of the cave can be less than appealing at times. There has long been a belief locally that Scotts Cave lay within the boundaries of a scenic reserve, and it came as a surprise to many when part of the land overlying the cave was clear-felled as part of a forestry operation in 1984. However, the 'reserve' seems simply to have been an area which the landowner at the time chose not to clear of forest so as to retain a pleasant locale for visitors to the cave. No formal reserve with any legal status exists. The logging occurred prior to the adoption of the Tasmanian Forest Practices Code, and involved considerable disturbance of the intermittently very active blind valley that leads into the cave together with clear felling of the forest and considerable ground disturbance in the seepage and dripwater source areas immediately overlying the cave.
A set of postcards were produced from photographs taken by the early Tasmanian photographer Steven Spurling sometime between 1898 and 1908 and a set of photographs of the same parts of the cave taken by Rolan Eberhard in August 1991. Some major speleothems that were once regarded as being among the outstanding features of the cave have been extensively broken, including The Shrine and Diana's Bower. Other features such as The Kings Palace and the robust Frozen Waterfall appear to have survived with little breakage although they have suffered significantly from muddying that does not show up well on the recent photographs. The condition of The Waterlillies, which occupy a low alcove, remains remarkably good.
It has not yet proven possible to put a precise date on Spurling's photographs. On one of his photographic expeditions Spurling is known to have ascended the Great Western Tiers via Parson's Track from Caveside, 5 km southeast of Scotts Cave, in 1904 (Jetson 1989). However, there is no reason to suppose that this was the only occasion on which he spent time in the district. Spurling's photographic activity in the district ceased the same year as the Scott family commenced tourist operations in the cave, raising the possibility that the postcards may have been produced to publicise the opening of the cave. Irrespective of these uncertainties, indications of pedestrian traffic evident in at least one of Spurling's photographs suggest that the cave was being visited by a significant number of people prior to its development for tourism in 1908. Hence it is difficult to date the demise of the speleothems evident from comparison of the two sets of photographs. It seems most probable the damage occurred after tourist operations ceased, but the possibility exists that it might have resulted from souveniring during tourist operations or perhaps even before they commenced.
Significant historical values remain, although little is left of the wooden stairway that was still discernible at the entrance in 1957 (De Vries 1957), and little of the lighting system remains intact. The generator remains, despite the exhortations of a Tasmanian Caverneering Club party that in 1957 visited the cave following newspaper reports that it might be re-developed: "Although the generator already shows signs of being covered with a layer of calcite it will be another few hundred years before it is completely unrecognisable. The removal of this generator should therefore need no further explanation". (De Vries 1957). Three decades later the historical significance of this artifact may still not be much more generally appreciated.
DISCUSSION
The failure of a tourist cave to remain commercially viable for economic reasons, or even due to its degradation as a result of unsatisfactory management practices, does not imply that it no longer retains any significant values that would warrant management interest in the cave. The fact that it has been at least partially protected from the depredations of casual visitors, collectors and vandals as a result of tourism management almost guarantees some values will have survived. But too often there is a tendency for management interest to decline as the financial rewards of cave management decline. Even if protective measures are put in place immediately after the cave closes, declining interest can mean a failure to speedily recognise the need for repairs or to effect repairs if gates are subsequently broken open.
In the case of Scotts Cave there seems simply to have been an absence of any effective management after tourist operations ceased. The publicity that the attractions and location of the cave had received made severe damage almost an inevitability. The fact that Scotts Cave remained in private ownership after it closed perhaps compounded the problem since little commitment to ongoing management appears to have survived the passage of generations and landowners. However, it is worth remembering that despite the fact that Baldocks Cave lay on a State Reserve it has only been in the last few months that the cave been regated after having lain open for years in a similar manner to Scotts Cave.
Nevertheless, more effective management of both Scotts Cave and Baldocks Cave was warranted after their closure. Although many important values in both caves have doubtless been compromised some remain extant even today and the overall situation in both caves was almost certainly better than now at the time of their closure. For example, despite the discolouration of speleothems in parts of Scotts Cave due to smoke from the lighting system and despite whatever breakages occurred at that time enough speleothems remain intact even today for the cave to warrant greater regard than it presently receives. This must have been more the case prior to the arrival of the vandals. Scotts Cave is also still of potential geomorphological interest, partly due to the coarse fossil gravels and speleothem carbonate associations present in various areas. Even now it still retains at least some biological interest (Moore 1978; Eberhard et al 1991). The old acetylene generator and what little remains of the lighting and fencing system are also of considerable historical value. The acetylene generator in Scotts Cave is of a quite different kind to that which now survives in very incomplete condition in Baldocks Cave, and both warrant proper protection as valuable historical artifacts.
An additional value offered in some cases is that old tourist caves with easy access lend themselves admirably to karst process studies by old cave tourists who are also past their prime! Some offer the opportunity for research that will allow a better understanding of certain issues associated with cave rehabilitation and old tourist caves can very effectively serve as sites at which the long term implications of damaging caves can be demonstrated very emphatically. Some modes of damage and modification to cave features can be dated fairly precisely to the time at which certain developments were undertaken. In Scotts Cave straw stalactites up to 15cm long have grown from the tips of speleothems damaged during the tourism phase. The gating of Baldocks Cave will facilitate investigations of this type by limiting modern damage.
We argue then, that the closure of a cave as a tourist venue should not be seen as signifying the end of its significance as a cave. Rather, it should be seen as signifying the commencement of the period of greatest risk to which any cave is ever likely to be subject. Management should be responsive to this.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to Elery Hamilton-Smith for supplying copies of the historical postcards of Scotts Cave. For help in other ways we are also grateful to Judith Hollingworth of the Northern Regional Library, Launceston; David Parham; and Chester Shaw.
PLATES
REFERENCES
DE VRIES, M.H. 1956 Scotts Cave. Bull Tasm. Cavern Club 1(l):10-16
EBERHARD, S,M., RICHARDSON, A.M.M. & SWAIN, R. 1991 The Invertebrate Cave Fauna of Tasmania. Zoology Dept, University of Tasmania. 174pp
HOLLAND, E. 1989 Away with the wires. Proc. 10th Int. Speleol. Congr.:260-262
JETSON, T 1989 The Roof of Tasmania. Pelion Press, Launceston. 174pp
MOORE, B.P. 1978 A new species of the Tasmanian cave carabid genus Idacarabus (Coleoptera). Aust. Ent. Mag 5(2):23-25
ROYCROFT, R. & ROYCROFT, C. 1986 Barbed wire. Australian Bottle Price Guide 4: 56-58. David Westcott Antiques, Deniliquin
SKINNER, A.D. & SKINNER, R.K. 1973 The Mole Creek caves. Published by the authors, Hobart. 36pp