raggles.kiwi

Bulmer and Bohemia

Somehow I have managed to not do any caving on Mt Owen in the few years since I started, but I finally got my chance recently on a trip with three others to Bulmer and Bohemia.  We only had three days, so we walked in early on Saturday to beat the rather miserable looking forecast, hoping that we would be underground by the time the rain reached us.  About 10 minutes up Bulmer Creek we had the first of many encounters with wasps, and we would often move quickly together through sections to attempt to avoid getting stung, which I luckily managed to do so - not so for the others.

After negotiating the intimidating but pleasantly easy-to-negotiate bluffs we arrived at Bulmer Lake for lunch, then headed over to the Bulmer main entrance just as it started to rain.  We had a bit of a false start, but located the entrance on the second attempt and by then it was fair persisting down.  We rigged the entrance pitch and headed down into the cave, doing the through trip to the Panorama Entrance.  By the time we exited, it was 7pm and dark.  It was an eerie feeling peering out the side of the bluff, not knowing how high you are or what your surroundings are like.  We used the excellent newly cut and fantastically marked sidle route back to the lake for a late dinner and a sleep in the rock bivvy.  Thankfully it remained quite dry throughout the night even though the rain continued for most of it.

Sundays trip was to Bohemia, and having been told that instead of taking the map it would be easier to just follow the markers we did just that.  The black and white minstrels and the main chamber were very impressive.  By the time I got to the bottom of the main chamber I already had a sweat on, and I still had to go all the way back up to the top!  We exited back to camp in good time and enjoyed another excellent back country dinner.

All that remained on Monday was to derig the entrance pitch to Bulmer, and avoid the wasps on the way out!  Unfortunately I was not so lucky this time and got stung, but we developed a good protocol of moving quickly as a tight group which largely avoided the stingfest.  A fantastic trip, and I look forward to seeing more of both caves in future trips.