Bulmer Expedition 2018

Bulmer Expedition: the hajj of New Zealand caving. That unique pilgrimage of national import, to see those amazing formations and set foot on a ridiculously small percentage of the country’s longest cave. While numbers are limited each year and many people make multiple returns, this event surely boasts the  largest number of attendees to a single such event over it’s long and illustrious history. It’s the one system that every caver has on their bucket list. To crack a new chunk of passage here is to write your name in the local speleological Hall of Wow.

Sadly in my first year, those who spawned the trip and have been it’s backbone for over 30 years were unable to participate. Also, in a surprise development, nearly three quarters of the caver-delegates decided to head for the ‘back’ of Bulmer within the first hour of  Day One. This left nowt but a handful of stragglers to populate base camp. Moreover of those left behind, only three knew the cave, and of those three only one solitary individual was of the get-out-of-bed-during-daylight-hours type. Thus it was for myself and a handful of other newbies that we found ourselves between what could well be described as a rock and a hard place.

Being an expedition newbie I had been instructed to walk the 4 hours in rather than fly the 3 minutes in so that I would be familiar with the track. Knowing my nav prowess this was imminently sensible. Trekking in would however be easy as the very trip founders themselves were to be my companions. On arriving at the top end of the practically named Owen Valley East Road. I followed my nose to the most likely placement of the carpark and heli-pad, before being surprised to find myself the first one there even though I was only about 5 minutes ahead of the appointed meeting time. After a few minutes and when the car immediately behind me failed to materialise I acquiesced to consider that I might just be in the wrong area. A few minutes and a km or two of bumpy farm track later I found a number of other vehicles, a melee of scruffy looking persons and was the last to sign in. A helicopter arrived shortly after and whisked most of the crowd and gear away, leaving the walkers, the wounded and the wives somewhat wind-blown in it’s wake. I know that’s a bit sexist but there were I think only 3 female contestants this year.

 

A few more people here than where I just was...

 

Just in time for the copter

 

What cavers look like

 

A tad overweight

Slinging my day pack aboard my shoulders another caver introduced themselves and announced ‘I think it’s just you and I walking in’. The founding souls had been denied attendance on medical grounds and I had been denied my initial trekking-in partners. The thought that I had narrowly escaped having to walk in by myself was chilling, I actually don’t think I would have managed it on the basis of the experience and information I had. I had no time to mull on it however, as my trek-in companion set off as if this were a mere 100 metre dash and I was forced to shut-up and pay attention to the task of simply keeping them in sight. (It took us 45 minutes to reach the Bulmer/Owen confluence on the way in, it took me nearly twice as long on the way back out). The track up the Owen River in trampers terms I guess would be considered pretty good, but for a suburbanite like me I’m kept wondering why it’s always soo rough underfoot and why I have to cling to roots and tufts of flimsy grass stalks just to keep from falling hundreds of metres into the surging torrent below. 

 

Up is the way in

 

Bluff to be navigated through

My trek-in companion had been up this track once before but even then we managed a couple of unplanned diversions. One was short and terrifying along a narrow ledge at the top of sheer bluff that I think was the same height as the Sky Tower, and the other longish and indistinct that brought us to a picturesque alpine meadow glowing in the evening ambience and twittering with native bird life, but not the spot where all the others where camped and where all the food would be stored.  A quick GPS reference showed us the general desired direction and my trek-in companion’s calm optimism made easy work of the repair and soon enough the brightly coloured spots of a tent town hove into view. 

 

Tent City

 

Lake Bulmer, almost dry

 

My possie

Having not been on an expedition such as this before, I really had no idea what to expect. So on top of the usual take-awhile-to-find-your-feet stuff I added a hefty dose of I’ve-got-no-idea-what-should-be-happening-here. Being mostly used to camping on my own or with small groups one of the things that struck me here was how one had to balance a high degree of taking responsibility for yourself with a tenuous concept of communal pitching in. Out of this one gets to experience these strange mini-relationships where you find yourself working closely (e.g. filtering water or washing dishes) with someone you don’t know for a few short minutes and then quite possibly have nothing much to do with for the rest of the trip. Another odd phenomenon that occurs when conversation stretches thinly, is that any little thing that anyone (who happens to move) does becomes disproportionately interesting. At one time I had the undivided attention of at least six cavers for the full 8 minutes it took me to tie my high-top tramping boot laces. Moreover the more intently they watched, the slower and more deliberately I tied, back and forth like some downward spiral until time itself seemed to go on holiday just to get away from the awkwardness of it all.

  

Day One included the installation of the new biv shelter. In the face of a brewing weather bomb – which admittedly never arrived – trying to get decisions made and action underway definitely left some bruising on the tongue. I don’t know what the biv situation was like before, especially when the camp was running at full capacity, but with the new shelter and only a few of us hanging about it was certainly cosy and comfy.

Brekkie, new biv in background

From everything I could see enough food had been laid in to sustain a medium sized army for a medium lengthed siege and that without anyone becoming worried about loss of muscle tone or missing out on thirds. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first in the world to note, however, that having an abundance of groceries at ones elbow is not automatically the same as having a delicious meal gurgling away happily in one’s digestive system. I hasten to add that as a general rule the expedition party members were exemplary in their efforts to ensure that cavers arriving home late from a hard days night in the underworld were sufficiently well nourished. They were and they did. But, and at the terrible risk of sounding a smidge critical which would be unintended and most unfortunate, it remains to be said that some of those who fronted up to the gas cooker produced just slightly microscopically better results than others. For some it seemed that ‘al dente’ should best be interpreted as, cut the cabbage leaf in half (carefully, so as to leave the thickest portion of the stem intact and trunk-like) and then bathe in vigorously tepid water, but not for too long, say, a minute at the outside.  Zest is a popular and tangy ingredient added to many meals these days, having whole slices of citrus peel included in a dish was new to my palate. Quantities are of course always a particular challenge when catering for groups. Having a bucket full of rice left over after three days of chewing on it though, would I’m convinced, qualify as at least one definition of ‘a bit too much’, if someone were to have asked prior to cooking ‘do you think that’ll be enough to feed everyone?’. How anyone in the natural world manages to make sandwiches with sandwich slice bread mystifies me. Others must cope, although God alone knows how, as only one of the 300 loaves in store was not of this malformed wafer thin variety. I know this for a fact as I emptied every box right to the bottom in search of bread of superior durability. I now imagine that even that one loaf was probably a mistake made innocently in the heat of shopping under extreme pressure.

 

Boiling the kettle

          Toilets are not usually the subject of any read-worthy article and if it had been any less extraordinary I would deigned to let the matter pass unobstructed. However, when the sole facility provided for 30 (according to Reuters) busy bums is a single seat placed as it was, about as far as I can dribble, from a main thoroughfare providing access to popular cave entrances, some comment becomes unavoidable. 

 

Bog Central

The ablutions facility sported a snippet of blue tarp as a roof that covered nearly, but not quite, the entire seat; ventilation was undeniably world class, there being no impediment whatsoever to deflect or otherwise hinder the prevailing breeze; and the view, or should I say views plural for they extended to the full 360° available, were delightful, eco-friendly and far-ranging. The toilet paper was slung in a plastic bag from the canopy where it took what advantage there was to be had for gathering and storing rainwater from day to day. The seat lid was one of those new-fangled hydraulic types, the kind that don’t slam with annoying abruptness if you happen to let it slip past your fingers. Perfect for not disturbing the natural environment the likes of which encircled this idyllic spot.

I gather the specific design of the earthworks underpinning the toilet, were to allow for the various techniques/positions used internationally. Unfortunately, as it was an all-in-one design, if for example one elected to employ the sit-down technique one was immediately and rather graphically confronted with the squat-over-the-slot option located, as it was, directly to the fore between ones boots. An easy solution here was to tilt your nose back and sit up straight to avoid getting an eyeful. Awkwardly however this invariably led to getting tangled in the wispy edge of the blue tarp which was slung low overhead. Furthermore when the underside of the canopy was damp, indeed dripping wet was standard, it required one to assume the counter-intuitive position of being hunched over with ones chin at close to knee-cap level.

Some attempt had been made to ensure the privacy of the user thus: A suitably stout twig, with a short length of flagging tape knotted to one end, was placed at either side of the potty along the main highway, I mean to say, track. Providing you remembered to activate these small sticks (by angling them across the path in a kind of blocking gesture) and providing the oncoming traffic saw them in time and complied with their intended meaning, you were as safe as houses. Excepting on the one side that is, that had its ‘Please wait here’ pink-ribboned branchlet located so close to said throne, that anyone arriving at it would have been hard pressed to sound convincing when they exclaimed ‘Oh! Sorry, I didn’t see you there!’, before stepping back hurriedly as the arresting aroma associated with their proximity wafted up to greet them. In the end it was easier to conduct a quick census of punters around the camp and when you were reasonably sure everyone could be accounted for to slip away quickly and quietly for the necessary functions.

Caving; was there any, you would be forgiven for asking?! Enough of this diatribe, what happens on expedition should surely stay on expedition. Yes, there was caving, of a sort, but only briefly and even then mostly not. Being short of leaders (i.e. people who actually know where the cave is) would not normally curtail the enthusiasm of any good caver. Somehow however we managed to develop a collective sense of over-cautiousness. Thus it was that instead of grabbing a barely legible map and making for the first hole in the ground we could find, we instead politely asked what others were planning and waited, approximately forever, for them to get organised before tagging along behind them. Tagging along behind someone when caving can work fine. Excepting of course when that person is not actually really caving but doing other good things like re-rigging an entire commuter route - ropes, hangers, bolts the lot. And excepting if  they don’t need your help and you don’t have any idea quite how long they’ll be before they’ll finish and then disappear into the inky blackness, leaving you to die unpleasantly if you’re not ready to leave with them at that very moment because you didn’t bring a barely legible map and have no idea of the way out. If you’ve ever really needed the bathroom just before the bus was due, that bus that you really really needed to catch, you’ll know what I mean by that last comment. The longer you wait the more you think “I should have just gone earlier, but now it’s too late because the bus will surely be here any second’, repeated ad infinitum. So instead of poking about and exploring the deeper recesses of the cave, mostly we just sat around and waited and waited and then did a little more waiting. Only one person was responsible for this dilemma, and I can only hope I wouldn’t allow myself to be so blobbingly inert another time or at least not to get so dang cold! 

 

Access to the main cave entrance

The next day was of much the same ilk, with our guide needing to stop in a particular spot for a couple of hours of his own work. Here at least there was a dig that the rest of us could throw ourselves at, or perhaps that should be throw ourselves into, as the mud quickly enveloped us in its chilling clingy grip. We think we probably extended Bulmer by a good inch or maybe two, but we were happy in our lowly grimy cramped crevice, indeed some of the team were enthusing about returning with purpose specific tools (as different from the rocks we employed at the time) to resume the dig later.

Not all was bad or lost, we did get to see some helictite formations which seem to be a Bulmer speciality. The entrance chamber/pitch is pretty natty with the light filtering in from the two entrances above and the Panorama exit/entrance is a nice sequence of a broken-sided rift leading to low smooth tube which then springs to life as a window set high in a cliff face gazing out over the distant tan and olive surreal-looking landscape. 

 

Helictite

 

Helictite

Speleotherm

 

Panorama Entrance

I do distinctly recall one section of monochromatic passage. We were bumbling along in a large rift full of sharp-surfaced boulders, enticing-looking side passages and blackened walls when suddenly we came to a featureless dead end, excepting that our guide then slipped over top of a boulder in the corner and disappeared through a narrow hole on the far side. This lead us to more passage similar to the one we’d just left. Some distance further on we veered to one side in an apparently random move and slid carefully through a gun-slot in the wall. Again we continued on in more rough rift passage which again ended abruptly leaving only a minute aperture a short way up the end-face. This rent in the wall bear-hugged each of us in turn as we squeezed through. In getting through everything on your person got stuck at once, so you wriggle about slowly to release each snag in turn and cumulatively each inch of ground is won as you persist in squirming an arm, a leg, your hips etc. Strange thing caving, but somehow squeezes and sequences like this are quite satisfying.

 

A romantic sunset

Leaf vein slugs

 

Karst sculpture

Thus my time on the expedition ended and I headed home leaving only one more story to relate. On approaching a one lane bridge from the side without right-of-way I found a bus wanting to cross toward me from the other side. Clearly he had right of way, equally clearly I was so close and he so far back that I might as well have got on with it and crossed over first. That’s the theory any way, in practice I knew I could still stop in time and allow the bus to sweep over the narrow structure without more than a light touch on his brakes. The bus driver seeing that I was so close, knew it would be more practical for me to get on with it, began to brake and flashed his headlights at me. Me, having just decided I really should just get on with it saw him flash his headlights and wondered momentarily if the flashing was ever so slightly terse and indicated that he knew he had right of way and that as I still (just) had room to stop that’s what I should do, and so instead I braked a little more. At this point the driver of the bus waved his hands at me in an attempt to be rather less ambiguous and to reiterate his original meaning – that being that I should just get on with it. ‘Ahh’, I thought to myself (or possibly blurted out loud), ‘now I understand’, only to find that I was now travelling too slow and that I needed to change into first gear, which involved grinding pretty much to a halt. The poor bus driver having now been ignored twice and seeing me stopping resigned himself to the enviable and began to lurch forward, just as I managed to engage first gear and regain some momentum. The bus driver, seeming a little flustered by now, seized the opportunity to achieve a useful outcome and flapped both his hands at me least the debacle continue on into the night. Sheepishly I inched my way across the bridge in first gear and carefully, without making eye contact, waved in a manner that I hoped would convey an ample balance of apology and gratitude and then hoofed off down the road with bright red cheeks.