Tequila, Bushwalking, SciFi, Mayhem

1996 : Lost World Caves

The first actual TasTrek “trek” was to the “Lost World” caves, on top of Mt. Wellington, where Mark & Nick, following the most ‘obvious’ trail (…not) were separated from the others (Richard, James, Peter, Bob and Tessa).

On a later second attempt, Nick & Mark finally got to see the caves (along with Richard & James). The main sections of the caves themselves are not that hard to get in and out of, but you can find some challenging nooks and crannies if you try.

The caves are a challenging twenty-five minute walk (well, climb too!) from the road over some rocky terrain, but the views of Hobart and the Derwent Valley are very impressive.

We have revisited the Lost World Caves!!! Info below…

As you can see from the pictures, the caves are not ‘natural’ caves, but formed by the collapse of a large cliff face made up of crystalline granite. The granite was formed into tall ‘organ-pipes’ and when it fell over it shattered, leaving all the cracks, nooks, and crannies that we can explore today.

We ventured again to the Lost World Caves on the 7th of November 1999. There were four hardy explorers, Richard, Peter, Mike and Tessa. The weather didn’t look real good, but we decided to go up and take a look from the carpark and take it from there.

We got to the car park, and it was raining, but the clouds looked like they were thinning out, so we waited for 10 minutes or so and finally the rain stopped.

The walk was the sane as ever, except for the fact it was wet and slippery from the rain. Just as we got the the Lost World Cave area the sun actually came out, and we were for a while quite warm (humid too!).

Now one of the fun things about the Lost World Caves, is actually finding the cave entrance. EVERY trip has 10 to 20 minutes of searching to find the actual cave entrance. (This time it took us 10 minutes)

We climbed down in to the caves and proceeded to the far end of the cave when rope is needed to climb down a 2m vertical drop (actually getting down there doesn’t required the rope, but getting back UP does!) where we found the rope was missing. Ah well, next time we’ll take some rope with us!

We climbed back out of the cave, and were just about to walk back to the car, when it started to hail! Heavily!
So we quickly rushed back into the cave for shelter. After 10 minutes or so, it stopeed and we started walking back. Halfway back the hail started up again, and got continually worse until, once we reached the car, it was starting to sting! Needless to say, we were pretty wet by the time we got to the car! Still… a good time was had by all…

A WARM summer trip is needed, with rope taken so we can explore further into the caves…

Well… with said rope taken, we again tackled the Lost World Caves again… this time there was Jim, Richard, Mike & Pete present.

You couldn’t have asked for a better day, a nice warm 22?C, a leisurely walk down to the caves. We actually found the caves easily this time. I think mainly because it was so fresh in our minds from a week or two ago.

We stopped and had a little snack and a rest inside the entrance to the caves, then proceeded into the caves. We had two torches (plenty of light) and about 10meters of rope. We had a reasonable time, looking down deep, dark crevasses, looking up into barely visible daylight in spots, staring in amazement at a watch glowing in the dark. We needed the rope to climb down into a certain area where there is a 2.5 meter drop with no real spots to grip or hang on… we explored about as far as we could then turned back.

Mike & Pete climbed back up the rope but Jim had a bit of difficulty getting back up due to a problem with the placement of the rope, and the distance between foot loops on the rope. After 4 or 5 tries Jim finally made it up, leaving behind only skin… I climbed up after him and we headed out of the cave.

Jims tight squeeze!

We ran into 3 or 4 more people at the entrance who disappeared inside for 10 minutes or so (we took the rope with us, so it wouldn’t rot) while we had a rest break, then we slowly slogged back up to the car Park.

We had fun trying to think of music that had the words “Rock” or “Stone” in their title or lyrics, and had amassed quite a list by the time we got to th car!

Needless to say, we went home (some had showers) and pigged out on Junk food to make us feel better after the afternoons exercise!

Here, live from the Royal Hobart Bruises, Cuts, Scrapes, Blood Loss, Concussion, and Contusions Ward is Jim’s report on what happened:

“… It was a Sunny day, 22 degrees C, blue skies.. fit weather for another Tastrek, Richard picked me up at around 1:30 pm, Pete and Mike were in the car and we cruised on up to mount Wellington.

We stop at the shop for much needed supplies, Chocolate that does not survive well, when left in a vehicle.. We Journey to the top of the mountain and take a look out over Hobart, hazy but a wonderful view, then we cruse on down to the car park adjacent to the start of the walking track and start our short accent followed by a drastic decent clambering down rack faces, over logs, under logs, through dense bush and tall rocks till we make it to the lost world cave plateau.

Some ingenious clambering has us leaping of fissures (not sure of the spelling, but for those not technically minded, great freakin holes in the rocks), also combating 45 degree inclines and walking along side boulders on a slope.. We find and mark our cave, we enter the cave and rest in the cool air.. And slowly make our decent inside the cave, it gets damp, cold and dark and the temperature drops quickly.

Torch light is the only real light you can use, and we placed a looped rope in place above a small hole within the rocks which leads down into a smaller chamber, after we all squeeze down this, we are met with another hole and a very slippery floor a ledge you have to shuffle across or you will fall very deeply into a crack traveling down a distance unknown.

There is a V shaped rock ahead father along in this chamber, one has to walk along side it to avoid hitting their head on a very nasty sharp rock, this rock has caused problems with other tastrek members (hi Bob!). We make it down further, getting wetter and colder the further we progress downward and between some cracks to find ourselves in the 3rd and final chamber, rather then, very wet area, very cold, and dark, water covering the walls, mud on t he ground and a very high roof, to go further would be tricky, the only way is down, and not too wide is the crack hat leads down.

So we headed back, slowly and collecting mud on our clothing by the second. We meet the section where we must clamber out of the cave, this is easy for mike and Pete, but not for Jim, Jim has a height issue, and strength issue, Jim is a lot bigger than the others,, Jim buggars himself totally getting up here which takes a good 15 minutes and a lot of blood and sweat, Richard clambers out and we make the accent out of the cave slowly as we’re all knackered.. We walk back up the hill, over rock, over terrain, over log in warm sun.. eventually returning to the car and ending a Trek, another Tas Trek!”

Any blood donations or organ transplants for Jim are gratefuly accepted!

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