Caving Club of Victoria Inc.

News from the ASF conference in Mt Gambier.

I arrived at Mt. Gambier racecourse one day before the conference was scheduled to begin. The horse racing track had been hired for the duration of the conference and was well suited to the job. There were many familiar faces from the SA caving club including Marie Choi, Chris Gibbons and Athol Jackson. I helped the CEGSA people put blackout sheeting on the upstairs windows to use that area as theatre and presentation venue. The venue had two levels and faced the racetrack. (of course) The upper level held the art show, the bar and kitchen. During the day the bar was closed and the children used it as a recreation area with TV and DVDs. The lower level held the temporary theatre and other displays by Forestry SA, ASF and other caving clubs. On Saturday morning the crowd started to form at the registration desk at 8 am. Chris Gibbons was getting hot and bothered when the mugs and T shirts did not arrived due to a car breakdown. All of the problems were resolved eventually so I went caving.	Deb Hunter, Ian Farhall and I went to Mt. Burr, about 40 Km north west and found the cave in a pine plantation. The entrance was easy via a hole at the base of a 3m cliff. We crawled, walked and crawled until we were stopped by a rockfall and a sand cone. The sides of the sand cone were covered in dead leaves of indeterminate age. I tried not to disturb the debris as we traversed the perimeter of the cone. I had not seen of these cones before now but the locals told me later that the sand can flood down from above if they are disturbed. In the late afternoon we were entertained with some DVD film provided by Andy Evais. He had been involved in the BBC production “Planet Earth - Caves” among other things. On Sunday we all attended the official opening of the conference and then a small party went caving at Snake Hill. Adam Branford from CEGSA led the way and we were soon underground. The cave is not very deep and has numerous roof collapses to allow day light and probably rope or ladder access.	I recall that I had been there some years ago on Clean up Australia weekend and we removed a few cubic metres of junk from the cave entrance chamber. About halfway through we found a bay tiger snake about 12 cm long. After some discussion we agreed that It had to go out or be killed to protect future cavers. I greed to stick it in my leather glove an took it out. When I set it free it was snapping and hissing at me so it was still in fairly good condition. I hope that I don’t meet it again in a few years time. After a cleanup and dinner we watched some more slides of caves in China from Andy Eavais. Monday I attended some of the cave presentations and a quiz night in the evening. Tuesday there were more presentations. During the afternoon Bruce and I attended the ASF committee meeting. In the evening I went to an Indian restaurant with Bruce Downes, Daryl Carr and Marg James. Just as we were about to start dinner John and Jeanette Dunkley came in to the restaurant so we asked them to join us.	On Thursday I attended more presentations and Bruce and I attended the second ASF committee meeting Friday afternoon was the Spelo Sports and the SRT Challenge. The SRT challenge required the climber to do some serious crossover work from one rope to another and to negotiate a rope protector on the way down. The speleo sports had some of the usual events but also a couple of new ones. The jelly pit was a child's wading pool filled with green jelly and ice cubes. At the bottom was a key that had to be retrieved and the whole pool had a tarpaulin thrown over the top. I have some photographs to put on our web page. In the evening we all enjoyed the Cavers Dinner and the fundraising auction. Andy Spate was the auctioneer and Ian Lewis Bought several things whether he bid or not. Saturday morning was pack up time and after we stowed our tents and helped to clean up the venue we took off with Ken Grimes for a tour of the south coast on the way back to Mt. Eccles, But that is another story.