Caving

I’ve longed to take our kids caving. Aleesha-Jayne can’t remember her first experience while Samantha and Ethan had never gone proper caving. So in chatting to the kids about caving they all related their experience of walking through a large cavern out the back of Orange NSW. In reality they had never experienced the fun of crawling through tiny underground holes.


Over the father’s day weekend in conjunction with SES friends we headed down to Bungonia Caves for a weekend of caving and abseiling. The weekend started very chilly as A.j and I drove through snow west of the Blue Mts. Arriving late in the night it was pleasing to see Leonie had setup camp and we soon bunked down for the night. As the temperatures plummeted we were woken by Ethan who’d become very sick and was vomiting in the tent. Unfortunately this lasted for most of the night.

By morning Ethan and Leonie with much regret had decided to return home due to sickness. This was a bit of dampener for us but with Leonie’s blessing I chose to stay with the girls and we got ready for our first cave. With harnesses, helmets, & headlamps we headed into “Grill” cave where we all had a lot of fun exploring the tiny nooks and crannies. In some places the girls were excited that only they could fit through the tight holes while I had to go another way. After a few hours we returned to the surface. Later in the day we explored a number of other caves before returning to our campsite for hearty dinner.

Sunday morning saw me smothered with Father’s day gifts from the girls, unfortunately Leonie couldn’t be there to share the morning with me. After breakfast we headed off to Hogans wall where the girls were excited to go abseiling and with plenty others around to help they were soon being lowered over the 25m cliff. Sam couldn’t get enough and was quickly back for another go while A.j was a little more reserved.

With the weekend coming to an end, it was time to pack up and have a bit of lunch before heading for home. I can’t wait to share another caving experience with the family, hopefully will get to enjoy it next time.