With our family divided over weekend activities I took the
opportunity to organise a social caving trip to Bungonia National Park for SES
members and their families. As participants swelled to 20+ some of us made an
early start to the weekend by heading out Friday night to setup camp and get a
head-start on the others. It didn’t take long to soak up the atmosphere of bush
camping with all the worries of city life behind us.
Saturday dawned early for many of us, either due to the
nagging birds and first rays of light or for the others who had to leave home
early simply so they could be ready for our first cave. After an exhaustive gear check and obligatory
photo we headed off to tackle B4-5 cave. This wasn’t our first choice of cave
but due to a bat increase in Grill cave the authorities had closed the cave to
the public.
With such a large group, which contained 6 children and a
varying range of skill we were always going to take a long time in the cave.
Each child had to be belayed over the difficult sections while adults sometimes
struggled to fit through various holes and squeezes. However after 4 long hours
we finally popped out at the other end safe and well. A number of us commenting
on how physically demanding but satisfying it was to lead such a large group
through what is a sometimes challenging cave.
Our weary bones set the tempo for the remainder of the day.
We hung by the campsite predominantly building various activities to entertain
the kids. At one point we had a flying fox, a slack-line anchored off, Frisbee games
and a football being kicked around so needless to say as dinner approached
there were plenty of tired people around, but what is turning into to be a bit
of a tradition we all migrated to the cam kitchen for a night of laughter, card
games and the odd tall story.
