Foxed again

In an attempt to further the cause that is the Connection of Armageddon and Fox River another trip there was undertaken earlier this month (Dec 2018). It seems to me that there are a lot of different pieces of the puzzle that we are working on trying to fit together. Vertical discrepancies, horizontal alignments, survey inaccuracies/blanks, differing systems of orientating North, hydrology, airflows, etc. all things that need double checking, understanding and interpreting. One of the troubles being that sometimes it feels like not all the pieces are actually from the same puzzle.

‘It’ll be a short trip,’ Neil reassures me on the phone, ‘as there’s not much we need to do’. Once off the phone I realise that’s some of the lamest spin I’ve ever fallen for. There’s no such thing as a short trip into Fox River Cave. Sure enough 1:30pm to 1:30am it was. During that time, we may or may not have found any significant new passage, didn’t get round to surveying anything and decisively concluded that it may be alright for Kieran to do Ironstone sans-wetsuit, but that’s the last time we’ll try it in Fox River. On the upside, we were reminded what an extensive, interesting and beautiful system it is, and just how much work there is yet to do upstream. On the downside we very nearly had a repeat of the drama we had last time exiting the entrance rope series, when Neil cut a rope in two and momentarily set himself up with an un-knotted 8 inch long tail dangling from his rack before managing to attach a cowstail. A hard day’s caving and spending 2 hours in a chilling streamway in a pair of long johns missing the bum will do that to you.

Over the edge of a fin to the first descent

          That’s the short version I submitted for the NZSS Bulletin on a last minute (literally) request from Neil. The fuller, some might suggest embellished version is as follows. Neil indeed did phone me promising he had something I would like very much to do, and proceeded to sell me a long winded tale of the usual bullshit. ‘Only a short trip in and out’, ‘sort out Arvid’s survey’, ‘we’ll be travelling light so it’ll be really easy’, ‘yes, we can do it in an afternoon after you finish work no sweat’, ‘we’ll do a little exploring but nothing major’.

          I had had to work that morning and things had not run closely to plan. Thus it was that I was a few minutes late on arriving. 10 minutes after arriving at the Fox River carpark however I was ready to roll, whilst Neil required another 20 or so to corral himself, his gear and indeed a sizeable chunk of my gear that he had requested, before he was likewise ready. During the next several hours Neil would periodically announce that we were x number of minutes behind his otherwise invisible schedule. Now I know that Lauren had been instructed not to become concerned about us until 7am the following morning. So quite what the schedule (to which we were always in significant debt) was or what the consequences of our behind-ness were going to be remained entirely unclear. 

Into the inky blackness

          This was my first time to the top of the stream way. It was a good feeling to climb out of the water after two hours and strip off the shredded remains of my already inadequate wetsuit. I clawed my way into a selection of warming dry clothes. We lunched or had tea or whatever its closest approximation would be in the over-world perched on knobbly unstable boulders beside the stream. 

Each grid is 100m

We picked a side passage to start exploring and set off with an unwarranted swagger in our stride. The resurgence we came to offered several leads for exploring and while I undertook a small dig Neil wandered off elsewhere. Once I had worn myself out with my little dig/squeeze I then spent half an hour looking for Neil. Eventually a replying Coo-wee came back to me and he hove into view. ‘One more passage to check out’ he said, ‘why don’t you go and check out such and such while I’m gone, oh and by the way I haven’t got my spare light so come looking for me if I’m not back in half an hour’. Yeh sure, so off I wandered to check out the ‘?’ I had been assigned. 

Passing the tube - Neil is about to throw a tube at me

When I got there, I realised I’d actually already been there, but seeing as I had half an hour to fill in I might as well push the worm-hole that it was to its end. As it happened it was rather fun and the small fossil tube popped back out some 30m on at the first area we’d been exploring, high up on a side wall where we’d missed it (or at least I had, I’m sure Neil will say that he had noticed it). Having completed my task-sheet I strolled back to camp and had a light snack. 

Figuring a good half hour had indeed transpired I tottled back off up the way I’d just come down for a couple of minutes before realising that technically I was on a rescue mission. So back to camp I went and gathered up what resources I had there that might possibly be needed/useful. The further up the passage I went the wetter I got and the less rescue-y I felt like being. Finally a large pool presented itself and I ground to a halt, blast Neil and his tardiness. I demurred for a few moments and coo-wee’d a couple of times. Happily shortly after there was an echo from upstream followed in time by a light attached to a Neil and I didn’t have to cross the pool. ( I later discovered that the pool is quite manageably crossed dry and that immediately on the other side the stream dies away to next to nothing - a mere trickle in a minuscule slot in the floor.

First attach your cowstail...

          Having chosen to exit the cave without putting on our wet suits had certain unforeseen consequences. Firstly we got cold, secondly Neil’s long johns had large holes in them, rather it would be easier and somewhat more accurate to describe them as being bottomless. Thirdly as we hashed our exit efforts it transpired that we swapped lead and Neil came from behind (as it were) and came to the head (again as it were). The precise location wherein this took place was a smallish alcove in the side of one of the large fins of limestone that dominate the entrance series of the Fox River cave. 

Space here in this alcove is at a premium, elbows take out eyes without first asking, one invariably steps on the toes of one’s companions in arriving or exiting the area, bags became snags, ropes become nooses and swinging carabiners become nun-chucks. Tyre tubes threaten to bounce you back out into the vacuum of space (well, it is a dramatic kinda area), and one has to be prepared to have ones personal space thoroughly interfered with. 

Next add your rack...

Thus it transpired that Neil jummared up the exiting rope in awkwardly close proximity to my face, or at least I should say his bottomless long johns did. Now, and this is the disturbing part, I found his peeking behind rather attractive as it heaved past and vanished over the top of the next rock-fin. Maybe this was simply further evidence of just how cold I was (/we were), and that it was merely a traumatic knock-on symptom from near-hypothermia. All I can really say is that I’ve never harboured any lustful admiration of, or sexual desire for Neil’s body before or since that one mind-warping moment. I'm sure Lauren does or that at least Neil would say she does but it's not my style.

          Managing not to lose a tyre tube down any of the many deep narrow fissures whilst exiting the entrance series is always a great boon. Soon enough we were leap-frogging the final hurdles and scrambling up the last slippery inclines. At the top of the last climb I had stashed a small grab bag of non-caving items and had included a large bag of ‘Snakes’ lollies specifically as a back-up glucose shot should it be required. Neil and I sat there and scoffed nearly the whole lot before staggering forward and down the remaining rock-fall to the main entrance.

Insert boot for maximum thrust

          Somehow the track back seemed less lethal than when we had been here in April. I didn’t manage to get lost and Neil didn’t manage to race me out by miles. Actually it was me who got to the stashed beersies first and had just located them and jimmied them open when he wandered round the corner and caught up with me. We rested on the river bank in the dark, stared at the stars, talked bullshit and sipped quietly on our beverages. Half an hour later and we were back at the carpark. 

The intimate alcove

What met our eyes there still boggles my mind. The small section of carpark we had elected to use was apparently set aside exclusively for the use of over-nighting campervans. Not that that should have really mattered much, excepting that unbeknownst to me the standard rule of thumb with these freedom-campers is that when they pull into a carpark that is already completely full they simply double-park or if need be triple-park themselves. Thus it was that Neil and I had to wake up just over half the carparks worth of campervans and ask them if they wouldn’t mind nudging their vehicle forward somewhat so that the van behind could do likewise and then if just one other motorhome could just shunt over a bit, one of us could very nearly get out with crashing into anyone. Maybe we should have apologised for disturbing them at half past one in the morning but I for one didn’t really feel I wanted to. Bloody free-loaders.