Trip reports

Trip report

2011-06-04	Caving - Wombeyan at Wombeyan Caves
Trip report:
Saturday At 9.30 am we left camp to go to Basin Cave (W4). We ended up not taking a direct route to Basin Cave due to incorrect GPS coordinates so around lunch time Kate, William and Andrew returned to camp before the others entered the cave about 12:40pm. We followed the old tourist route to the basins using handlines in sections where required. After inspecting the large basins and taking a few photographs we abseiled a 10-15m drop setting up a ladder to use for our ascent. This led shortly after to Pyramid Chamber and we spent some time taking photographs of the flowstone walls and flowstone feature high up. At the end of this chamber, there was a grotto with a window overlooking a pool on the left side and further passage leading to the right. We proceeded along this passage briefly exploring a low route in the floor which according to the map rejoins the passage further into the cave. We turned back before this point because of our late start, retracing our steps back out exiting at 16:40. SUNDAY Left camp at 9:00 to go to Grants Cave (W137). Grants Cave is a series of joint formed passages opening out into wider passages and chambers in places. We entered at 10:30am and explored many of the rifty passages enjoying the three way squeeze near Rockfall Chamber. Ros, Elanor and Mark explored for a further 20 minutes into the cave stopping at a steeply sloping tunnel before a squeeze. We all exited the cave via another loop going through Rockfall Chamber. In this cave, photographs were taken of the beautiful rift passages and a lot of signatures were observed. Exited the cave at 13:30.