Caving is like fun, only different.
Winter 1993. 43 mins and 20 seconds before last orders.
Irish border between the Republic and the North.
“Quick quick Terry put the pipe away, we’re at the
checkpoint”. “Relax man, just let me finish off this beer. It’ll be grand”. We
approach the marked lines on the road with the Red stop light facing us. On
either side of the road there are tall colour bond steel fences. CCTV cameras are
pointed at us and no doubt microphones listening in too. There is a tower
above, similar to a control tower at an airport only on a smaller scale of 1:5.
We wait in anticipation for the Green light, signalling us to pass through
unmolested. I’m feeling apprehensive, maybe its because I’m really stoned,
hoping the dreaded left arrow doesn’t illuminate, indicating the border forces
want to take us in for questioning and a good look at our vehicle. Who knows
what goes on behind those walls.
“Its only the pot head student cavers from Dublin, just wave
them through”. “No, no. Not Bombs. Bongs”. The light goes green. My pulse
lowers from 3x104 beats per minute to a more manageable 82. In all
the many years we spent caving in the North, we never did see that little left
arrow. “Tony, put the foot down or we won’t get last pints in”.
The four of us charge through the door of the Blacklion pub.
“Howya, Lads”, greeted our barman,” bit wet this weekend for you
isn’t it?”. None of us probably even listened to the weather on the radio, or
looked at the paper or even dialed the weather service, that one cost money.
Spending money meant less beer. “16 pints of Plain please”. We sat back, guzzled the pints and jawed to
some of the locals we knew. The bar man knew we came up from Dublin, but he used
to ask us the same question every weekend, “have you no homes to go to?”. The
call was made, “OK lads, bin it”. The remainder of the pints were sculled, we jumped
back into the car, drove for 15 or 20 mins and parked on the side of the
road. It was probably 12:30am at this stage. It wouldn’t be unusual for it to
be raining or sleeting, this is Ireland we are talking about here. We would sit
in the car and pass around the Pipa and probe each other, seeing who was brave
enough to extract themselves from the warm safe life support provided within
the Vehicle, out into the cold dark void of the Co. Fermanagh countryside. Its
one thing stripping off into rain or sleet into your nip, but its another pulling
up a wetsuit to the point where the cold wet neoprene just decides to make first
contact with your balls, “FFFAARRrkkkkk”. Sometimes we would spend what
seemed like hours walking around the paddock, calling out to each other. “Al. Where’s
the fucking entrance gone ?” to realise that you were the only one still wandering
around outside and everyone else was in the relative safety of the cave out of
the wind and rain. Friday night caving trips were generally a weekend warmup
and limited to a couple of hours. After all we did need to get up the next
morning and hit Tullyhona house B&B for a large cooked breakfast and get
underground for a big trip of 8 to 15 hours. Al claimed for many years that he
was a vegetarian. “I only eat Chicken and mince” he would remind the lady as we
came through the door. “Take off those dirty boots”, she would scold in a
motherly tone, “you never let me know that you are coming”. At the ripe old age
of 22, I wasn’t able to plan my next pint, never mind my next breakfast!.
Caving is a sport for drinkers and stoners. As you are going underground its
dark anyway, so there is no great rush getting it all done during daylight
hours. We liked to be up and going by the crack of Lunch. We used to stay in a
small old run down farmhouse building called Agnahoo. One morning there was a
knock at the door. On answering it, we were a little surprised to find an M16 greeting
us on the other side. Behind the M16 was a patrol of about 8 – 10 UDR soldiers,
including one dude with a different hat to the others, so presumably he was in
charge. “Hello Sir, what can I do for you”, I exclaimed. My standard greeting
to anyone pointing a gun at me. Two republic registered vehicles in an old deserted
farmhouse in the North had raised suspicion to the wandering patrol. We invited
them in for a look around. Fortunately, they were more interested in looking
for explosives than Bongs. They told us to be careful, said it was going to be
wet and went on their merry way. Everyone thinks they are meteorologists these
days! “Alright Crackpots, I hope everyone has charged their lamps. Grab those
Mars bars. Where’s the rope bag? Let’s
go Caving!”.
Its been many years since I have immersed myself in
Speleological activities, Potholing or Spelunking as the yanks would say. Now, 23 years
later, we were driving up Mt.Buffalo to do a reconnaissance trip into the
underground river cave before taking the kids in. We had heard reports of some
of the local guides and other self-appointed figureheads trying to stop people
going caving without paying for a tour. I wasn’t even sure if we needed a
permit, which would not be unusual in Australia and my New South Wales fun
license wasn’t valid in Victoria. We decided to take the approach of looking
for forgiveness rather than permission. My initial general response when I get
in trouble for something in Australia is “I’m from Ireland” and I have had a
great deal of success with it. Example: Park or Council Ranger “You need a
beech permit to drive that vehicle here…!”. ”I’m from Ireland”. “Oh, ok. Make
sure you get one next time”. I don’t know if I get away with stuff because they:
- Just like the Irish and think we are a bunch of merry drunks
- Think there are no permits or rules in Ireland
- Think the Irish just can’t seem to grapple with the not so subliminal messaging plastered all over the signage “Beech Permit Required”.
Al, on the other hand, takes the slightly less than
diplomatic approach with the following frequently used stanza, “Fuck off and
don’t be annoying me”.
I dragged myself on my belly on the gravel cave floor in the
cold stream water, my helmet pressed up against the cave roof. Back in the day,
we were tough enough to withstand the searing challenge of the sun and the wind
and driving rain, but now I felt about as mobile as an 80 year old. Al charged ahead, reaming the cave for me. Like
dormant Malaria springing back into action, Al’s caving prowess returned as
soon as he hit the streamway. I followed
in hot pursuit. We recced the whole
cave and estimated it to be about 300M in length. Cave is a bit of an
extravagant word for it. In truth, it’s a big Granite rock fall or boulder
choke collapsed onto the stream.
We went back two days later with the kids to
bring them through. Enthusiasm was relatively high. We all kitted up in
wetsuits, helmets and more lamps than you could shake a stick at. The cave was
impregnated by climbing down through a series of boulders and straight into the
cold dark stream. There was a little swim required. Zak’s enthusiasm rapidly
diminished to that of someone looking forward to a sixty hour work week. He had
enough. “You go on with the girls Al, I’ll bring him out.” We scrambled back
out into the warm Sun. Forty Minutes later Al and the girls appeared, they were
out too. The girls had enjoyed the
experience but they were cold. They went through to the cavern full of glow
worms and then popped out the first exit and rock hopped back down stream to
myself and Zak. Hopefully there will be more Caving in store for us on the
Limestone coast of South Australia.
The start of the Mt Buffalo TT was only an hour away and
after fuelling up with sandwiches, fruit and muesli bars, Al “Joey Dunlop”
Deering and the kids jumped on their mountain bikes and whizzed down the 20km of
windy hairpins and switchbacks to the finish line in the hot valley air about
1000M below. Everyone was amped. Observations of “its really hot down here”, segwayed
into a discussion on air mass instability. All the kids now understand lapse rates
and that the Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate of air is 1°C per 100M. Shit, its on. Better
go flying!
I spent 12 days flying in Bright over X-mas and new year and
then again in the recent comp, but it wasn’t enough. Like a Heroin addict
looking for the next Jab, I needed to get to Mystic fast for a flying fix. First
flight on the new tandem was with co-pilot #1, Zak and his mate, 10kgs of water
ballast. The forecast was for the wind to increase. I was primarily interested
in doing a quick incident free flight to test out the glider as we were flying
it in the bottom third of the weight range. Flight plan was Take off, Climb out
and boat around for a bit and then go and Land at the LZ. Nice take off. Plenty
of penetration. Smooth handling. Then we hit a screamer of a thermal and cored
it. Zak has just started doing fractions in maths and felt it important to point
out to me that only 2/3’s of the wing was flying. “Dad, have you ever stalled
the wing”, he calmly and inquisitively asked me. “Yeah man, I’ll tell you about that later!”. I
was keen to land soon-ish just to see how the glider handled before it got too bumpy in the LZ. The next
day I took Caoimhe for a couple of flights. As she had not flown before, I
wanted to do a sleddy from top to bottom, as the bumpy Mystic air during the
heat of the day could turn anyone off a first flight. Flight #2 required an
aborted take off as I let the wing get ahead of me while launching. No point in
taking any chances. We had fun, but it was a short flight. Niamh had no
interest in departing the safety of Madre Terra.
I’m not sure it’s true that I get more conservative as I get
older, maybe I do. What is true though, is the risk\reward ratio gets a lot
more scrutiny. I think its inbuilt into your DNA. We are programed to survive
to bring up our kids whether we like it or not and we don’t yet have the full
source code available to edit and recompile. You may say Flying and Caving are
dangerous. I would probably agree to the extent that they are unforgiving or
possibly even unsafe. Safe is sitting at home on your couch, being programmed by
your TV, which could ultimately lead to health problems in one form or another.
To me that’s not living. You only truly know you are alive after an experience
that brings you closer to danger or possibly even death. Other activities
or pursuits that are deemed to be safe can have factors in there that you just do not have any control over,
as I have attempted to describe in the examples below:
- Driving down the freeway. No warning. Not your fault. Crash. Bang. Your life is over. You are not playing Sega Rally so your $2 doesn’t get you 2 more lives.
- Rock Fisherman. “Oh look at that really big wave approaching us at that phenomenal speed. There must be tens of thousands of cubic meters of water there. Why isn’t there anyone else here to see it too…?”
- Horse. “I can attempt to land this probably manageable 2 Meter jump with this 567 Newton weight on my back. There is a probability associated with the risk of breaking a leg and being put down. Or, I can abruptly stop in 2.37M, execute a 180 degree turn and go over there to that nice field of carrots for a munch…..”
The Porpunkah waterhole was always high on our daily agenda.
Nice cool water and deep pools to escape the 35+ °C temperatures. The kids (Al,
included) impressed themselves and anyone who would look at them, by executing
a series of triple axel reversals with 2 pi radian twist’s. Pity I didn’t have
the camera rolling …...
The first injury of the trip was at the BMX track when Zak,
while grinding the lip and hucking a transitional rollback into a failed tailwhip,
received a handlebar in the temple. He ended up with quite a bruise and was possibly
a little concussed. Zak later reported that he lost about 2.32Gb of Memory. Fortunately,
it was nothing an icepack, a cold drink and a big cuddle couldn’t fix on this
occasion. I’ve been telling Zak since he was about 2, that most of the pain
goes away in two or three minutes. When he stacks, I see him there in great discomfort,
taking the pain. I saunter over and casually suggest that he sits down and has
a rest for 5 minutes. “NO”. Up he jumps and off he goes again. The ground was a
lot softer when I was 8 than it is today!
Off to the Victorian Coast .........
