BETWEEN FRIENDS

Friends and Romans!

After reading the following reports on the Friends Weekends you will see there are always interesting and varied activities going on.

Membership has charged beyond the 50 mark, but we need continuing active participation on the Friends weekends as well. The up-coming Annual General Meeting and BBQ on 4th December 1993 will be an ideal opportunity to socialise and discuss Friends projects with other members, and the Reserve management, in a relaxed (and slightly smoky) atmosphere. Bring your ideas and enthusiasm; the food is on the Friends.

Our Bat Pamphlet is selling satisfactorily, with the most rapid sales coming from the Buchan General Store at $1 each.

by Peter Ackroyd

(also appears in Nargun 25(9):80)

A slightly smaller group than usual attended this weekend at Buchan, but some significant milestones (kilometre posts?) were passed. Peter Ackroyd finally completed the Federal Cave wash-water system. The cave now has a series of seven strategically placed taps throughout the first 300 metres of cave. The 25 mm black polyethylene supply pipe ends at a point about 50 metres past the "King Solomon's Temple" decoration. Many people helped on this project and it is good to see the system already in use.

In Fairy Cave, Jack Lewendon, Mick Adler and Bill Cuffe, ably assisted by several other Friends, removed the old 32 volt lighting system from the Eastern Chamber. Also in this cave some 12 volt lights were tested by Glenn Baddeley and others to allow the commencement of the Friends lighting project in Blackwood Chamber.

On the Potholes revegetation project, Geoff Hammond constructed a lightning rod for the electric fence and two Friends dug about 40 holes for young trees in the trial revegetation plot.

This very successful weekend was attended by:

Peter Ackroyd	Peter Deane	Dave Ridley
Mick Adler	Geoff Hammond	Peter Robertson
Glenn Baddeley	Simon Keirs	John Van Dyk
Neil Chalmers	Kerry Lawrie	Kim Van Dyk
Bill Cuffe	Jack Lewendon	Brett Wakeman
Jim Daly	Erica Maggs	Margot Watson
Matt Deane	Dave Morrison

by Peter Ackroyd

Ten friends attended this weekend at Buchan, which was mainly devoted to the daunting task of cleaning Honeycomb. On Saturday morning, Peter Robertson and Jack Lewendon carried out repairs and extensions to Peter's phone system in the Reserve, while Peter Ackroyd, Brett Wakeman and Glenn Baddeley did executive type things like checking out sales of the bat pamphlet (moderate), clearing the donations bins in the tourist caves ($235), and planning a new 'Friends' display board and donation bin for Fairy Cave. After this the fire tank was retrieved from Anthony Costigan and loaded onto the Department 4WD, filled with water, and driven up to the Potholes area, right to the entrance of Honeycomb.

The Friends newly acquired 54 metres of hose was hooked up, and with the addition of 30m of Department hose was able to reach to the proposed cleaning area - the decorated chamber behind the Main Chamber in Honeycomb.

The process of scrubbing and hosing went on for a long time. An entire 20 litre bucket of mud was scraped up from the floor of what was once a flowstone covered chamber.

While the cleaning was in the early phases nearer the entrance, a semi-commercial group of "cavers" came through, passing over an area I'd just labouriously scrubbed. One of the novices in this party asked the leader why he'd led them that way and not the alternate route that everyone else was using. The reply was "Well you wouldn't want to go up that shitty way would you, our way was much nicer."

Despite these psychological blows, we continued our task until the water ran out at 6:30 PM. We were pleased to note a considerable improvement to the appearance of the chamber.

The next day was much the same, with a refilled tank of water being used to supply the scrubbers until again it ran out at about 1:00 PM. By then most people had had enough anyway.

A small sign with the wording "Cave cleaning in progress. Please avoid entering: Friends of Buchan Caves" was rigged up with some flagging tape across the entrance to the chamber. It was noted by Brett Wakeman that a similar sign left there about 18 months previously appears to have been effective in reducing visitation - as assessed by a visual examination by Brett.

At Buchan Caves Reserve, 6:00 PM onwards, on Saturday 4th December 1993. All are welcome to this event which will takes the Friends into their seventh year of togetherness, and our second year of being an incorporated association. The agenda is:

• Election of officers for 1994
• Presentation of the Annual Report on finances
• Consumption of BBQ cooked personally by Graham Parkes
• Drinking of beverages, with the Tea brewed specially by Peter Ackroyd

by Glenn Baddeley

Mick Adler and crew expended much elbow grease on both days, hauling bags of rubble from the Niagara Falls area of Royal Cave.

On Saturday, Ray Monish and his crew kept totally in touch with the light of day by moving a low treated pine log fence in the Reserve, to make more sensible parking arrangements for visitors near the kiosk. Much cursing resulted from the coincidence of a couple of the post holes with firmly established tree roots, but these challenges were met head on.

by Peter Ackroyd

The Friends committee have decided to apply for a conservation grant to assist in the design, preparation, manufacture and installation of a series of large format (around 0.7m) interpretation signs around the Buchan Caves Reserve. Topics will include History, Karst, Landscaping, Animals, early personalities who had major input to the creation of the reserve and anything else you may like to think up.

We intend discussing the whole project on Sunday 5th December - the day after the AGM, so if you have any interest in this, whether it be in the design layout or manufacturing stages, come along, and have your say.