The Eighth Wonder
My heart was pounding hard. The eerie silence was masked only by my grunts and groans as I tried to get out of a squeeze that was slowly swallowing me. I guess at that moment it hit home…if I got stuck we were in trouble.
We were in a new passage of a cave in the middle of the Tawarau Forest that only a handful knew even existed. Two of those people were behind me trying to calm me down. This is what exploration is about and what drives us crazy breed to go were no man has gone before.
Over the last 12 months Zane Burdett, Grant Whitehead, Andy Mitchell, Troy Watson and I have been involved in several expeditions to Tawarau Forest in search of undiscovered caves. Because of the Tawarau Forest’s remoteness and rugged Karst topography, not many expeditions have been successful in the past. Back in the 1980’s Tawa Kananda was discovered but not much else has been found since then.
Our first few trips in 2007 were directed around Tawa Kananda. One particular trip saw us survey 350m of new cave and a further expedition saw us survey 140m of a beautiful passage full of gypsum dust and sillenite needles. This expedition was cut short due to time but the passage stretched on and the lure of the undiscovered kept a further trip firmly in our minds.
This lure lead to Zane, Troy, Andy and I planning a three day expedition into the Tawarau Forest; searching the bush around the Tawa Kananda system in the hope of discovering a new cave system. The walk in took a little longer than usual…we didn’t want people to find our path so we decided not to mark our tracks for the first part of the trip. This resulted in us in getting a little disorientated,- or, more accurately, lost. We didn’t feel too bad as 98% of cavers get lost in the bush and we weren’t too perturbed to be adding to that statistic. After two hours of hard walking we made camp. Sitting next to our newly started fire we studied a Topo map to get an idea of where to start our search efforts the following morning. We finally agreed on a spot. Anticipation was running high as we tried to get some sleep.
The next morning we rose early and set off. Within two hours we were standing in an impressive chamber nestled deep within the forest. A quick survey revealed only 100m of new cave - but its formation was something else. It was only fitting that it was named the ‘Eighth Wonder’.
The next two days were spent in the bush, but disappointingly we turned up very little cave. On the last day we decided to finish what we had started in Tawa Kananda…to push through the passage that showed so much promise.
The day started early. Before we knew it we were standing in Tawa Kananda - once again at the passage that we had recently surveyed to a length of 140m. It was now time to push along further to see what secrets it was holding.
The passage was beautiful, its walls encrusted in gypsum, our LED lights making it sparkle like diamonds. We named this passage the ‘Milky Bars Are On Me’. We pushed on and soon the passage changed and became tighter. We kept going, lured and captivated by what lay ahead.
Pretty soon the walls were compressing me inch by inch. We kept pushing on but pretty soon we ran into problems. I could see the passage just beyond this tight part of the cave - and it was big. But for the time being I wasn’t going anywhere. The sound of my heart pounding was reverberating in my ears. A reassuring voice yells, “stay calm”. “Easier said than done”, I yell back to Zane. Time seemed to stand still for a while but eventually I got through. The rest of the boys followed, but we all had to work hard to get through the squeeze. It was named ‘Who Needs Nipples’, for obvious reasons!
We continued on in the passage which seemed to get bigger. Eventually the beautiful, diamond incrusted walls ceased and were replaced with manganese oxide-stained walls. It didn’t take long for us to realise that we were back in the main passage. It had simply been a big oxbow (loop) in the cave system.
In total we surveyed 230m of the Tawa Kananda cave system. We were all happy with the day’s adventure and the walk home flew by with stories of our exploration. We will continue exploring the Tawarau Forest in the hope of one day stumbling upon the ultimate undiscovered cave system…the one that stretches kilometres long!
