Over the summer holidays a small group of UNSWOC members set out for 4 days to the Bungonia SCA, a place best well known for its limestone caves, but also for some big and dry canyons. The plan for our the trip was to explore two of the canyons closest to the campsite, Bungonia and Jerrara Creek, along with poking our heads into some of the caves in the area on the rest days.
Day One - B44 Grill Cave
As we drove down from Sydney, we didn't have much time and chose have a poke around Grill Cave, seeing how far down we could explore until we hit foul air.
Crawling down the entrance we scrambled down to the bottom of the big ladder and 10m waterfall. Here we explored the tunnel underneath the waterfall into the interesting hole towards the sections labelled "unstable". After getting significantly wet in the puddles we waded through we returned to the main aven.
Still not finding foul air we continued with our luck, traversing the horizontal ladder and exploring the maze above the duck under. With everyone being too scared to crawl through the submerged duck under, we found a way around the top, and continued to the mud slide.
Here is where we encountered a patch of foul air, with the lighter flame levitating centimetres above the nozzle, and people getting exhausted from the crawl up the slippery mudslide, we decided to return the way we came and exit the cave.
Day Two - Bungonia Creek Canyon
Having read Tom Brennans description of the approach to Bungonia creek, a 500m creek walk, we decided to do the recently published abseil entrance by David Mason. Hence we began walking along the Green Track to the watercourse which flowed off into Bungonia Creek. Following this down, and while looking for the anchors, we found a bushwalkers entrance into the canyon, following a mossy rope to the left of the abseil, and over the knoll. After finally finding the bolts under the cave underhang, we set up a traverse line to reach the bolts, and we began to abseil in.
We got to the bottom of the abseil, and while pulling down the ropes they became stuck, so after ascending the ropes again and fixing the snag, we continued on our way down the canyon.
Continuing down the canyon and after having lunch at the bottom on Bungonia Falls, we continued down to the next abseil after the confluence of Jerrara Creek. Seeing the opportunity for a great jump on the left into the water Theo and I decided to climb up and give it a go.
While we were up there, we saw a large snake which many of us at first through was a tree root on the opposite of the pool. The snake in question, around 2.5m long, thicker than our thighs, and scaling a near vertical cliff up and out of the water we were swimming in.
Finishing up we quickly moved on to the final abseil, and then we scrambled along the long creek to the base of the red track, before the painful 500m ascent back to the campsite - not fun.
Day Three - B4-5 Cave
Having suffered up the red track back to the campsite the day prior, we were keen for a slightly more relaxed day exploring B4-5 Cave. Deciding to enter Fossil Cave, we crawled along into the signature room, along the Kings Cross, and through to the connection to Hogan's Hole. Squeezing up the Slip and Slide Rift, we made our way to the hairy traverse.
After looking at some fossils in the ceiling, and mustering up some courage to cross the traverse, we crawled above the 10m drop to our right holding on to only the chain.
Once we all got through, we had a bite to eat in the cement room, before continuing up and out of the cave.
Day Four - Jerrara Creek Canyon
Waking up at dawn for our biggest of the 4 days, we walked to the start of Jerrara Creek Canyon. After about 2 hours we got down to the water, were we donned the wetsuits. After some interesting initial abseils we got to one of the highlights of the canyon, the 8m jump into the narrow and shallow slot beneath us.
As it turns out this problem was too much for us, and we decided to abseil down. Maybe next time.
The next obstacle was the 80m multipitch abseil down Jerrara Falls. Collecting all four of us on the halfway ledge, we made it down with centimeters to spare to the bottom of the cliff.
After the confluence with Bungonia Creek and some jumps into snake lake just like two days prior, we got the the final abseil. With plenty of time to spare and a good idea of the exit time, we decided to hang around and have some fun at a jump rock we spotted on our decent of Bungonia Creek. We also chose to slide down the final abseil into the pool below.
After plenty of fun, we continued back along and up the red track with the walk out seeming much faster than when we did Bungonia Creek.
Overall, Bungonia was a great place to spend the week, with the only canyons left to do being Fordham and the one that shall be left nameless :P.
Participants: Alfie, Linna, Theo, Luke