raggles.kiwi

Harwoods & Corkscrew

I finally decided it was time to chop my 200m Harwoods rope into something more useful, but thought I should do one more trip on it before doing so.  So it was on Thursday night that two of us drove up to Canaan Downs during the night, arriving shortly after midnight.  Around 2am I heard our third group member arrive (who was new to caving) and settle in for a somewhat cold (zero degrees!) night.

At the crack of dawn, I got up, and rigged a rope up a tree with a rebelay so that our Harwoods virgin could acquire the necessary skills for the trip, and after a few hours and some breakfast I declared everyone fit for purpose and we headed down to the hole.  This time we decided that the last person would rig the rebelay (last time it was rigged first), in the interest of saving a bit of time.  I went first down the rope, as I wanted to get some good photos of the others to make up for my poor results on the previous trip.  The trip down was largely uneventful, with everyone managing to keep their nerves under control.

The trip through Starlight was very pleasant, although I think next time I will take a wetsuit and get in the water a bit more often, as it looks so inviting!  It was bright and sunny at the exit, so after some lunch we headed back up the hill, I nipped back down to derig the rebelay and we were out in time for afternoon tea, shaving 3 hours off our last time (8hrs), what a difference it makes when you know what you are doing!  We still had plenty of daylight left so I spent a few hours attempting to make some sort of flying fox.  It only kind of worked.

On Saturday we once again took advantage of the rigging in Corkscrew, and having plenty of time available we looked around at all the things we missed previously.  Most impressive was the new rigging in the avens, I'm not sure how high it is but it seemed like we ascended almost 100m back up on only a couple of pitches.  From the bottom I couldn't see the top of each pitch, even with a 1500lm light!  Unfortunately I had left my bag back in the main streamway, as I wasn't aware of the extensiveness of the avens, and at the top of the first big pitch my light warned me it was down to 10% of its battery.  I then sat in darkness on a ledge for 30minutes while Phillip continued up higher, but even then the top wasn't reached .  I speedily headed back to my bag for fresh batteries and lunch, then headed back up the 200ish metres to the surface.