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Published: July 12th 2014
SMASHED & SHATTERED: How are we going to get out of this one? I thought I could impress her...thought she'd think this was the coolest thing she'd ever done...never thought what happened could ever happen..no one would.
Fact is stranger than Fiction they say.
What happened on this trip made Fact out of Fantasy...made Fact into Freaky Reality.
******
I had been caving with a Speliological Club in Coolamon Caves in the Snowy Mountains...extraordinary area not now open to the public...restricted to experienced cavers.
Had driven there via Brindabella Track near Canberra...roughest road on the planet...traversing sharp boulders for miles and miles. One massive rock tried to climb through the floor of my Datsun 180B...caused a massive ding in the floor...had to jump on it to flatten the floor back...swore I'd never drive that track again.
Maybe I should have had a 4WD like everyone else...but I didn't.
When we got to the Snowy Mountains drove for about an hour and a half with one wheel off the track and the other on the middle ridge formed by 4WD tracks.
Camped next to Cave Creek...next to a cave that looked
DENISE
Just after I had proposed and she had agreed to marry melike Skull Cave in the Phantom comics.
And out of the mouth of Skull Cave flowed Cave Creek...then through massive narrow gorges...limestone caves popping out everywhere.
******
I looked into Denise's blue eyes...shaded by blonde curly hair...this sun-tanned goddess that I had fallen for.
Where could I take my fiance that would blow her away?
Ping. Brain engaged.
I'll take her caving for a week...camping at Cave Creek!
******
T'was about 10pm...been driving about 3 hours from Sydney...pulled into a service station to buy more batteries for our torches...meant to be...couldn't start the car again...the alternator had gone.
Had to wait till morning to find a place that could fix the car...not easy on a Saturday.
Meant we changed our itinerary.
I was not going to enter by Brindabella Track so going the long way was via Cooma to Adaminaby.
Decided to check out Talbingo...one of the prettiest villages in the Snowy Mountains you could ever see. Jounama Pondage on the Tumut River on one side...Tumut 3 Power Station with dam the other.
Stayed one night on the Tumut River under a weeping
willow...eating trout we caught...never had better.
By the time we got to Adaminaby with its giant trout as its symbol...no time to access Coolaman Caves before dark so we stayed the night under the grandstand at the local oval.
When you're out to impress a girl...gotta get the best lodgings...so the maintenance shed was pretty salubrious...even had toilets nearby.
******
Tuesday morning got to the dam then headed into the wilderness through heath grassland for a couple of hours with one wheel off the track and the other on the middle ridge formed by 4WD tracks.
Who needs a 4WD? The Datsun is handling this fine. Weather sunny and dry.
Arrived at the creek crossing...campsite ahead.
But the creek was too deep to cross so we piled river stones to form a sort of bridge and managed to ford the stream just there.
Then up a slope...short track...large flat wooded area next to Cave Creek...pick your spot to pitch the tent.
How about near Skull Cave?
But we were not alone.
A lone tent with a neat fire pit...a guy and a girl looking pretty content.
And so we met Ray & Deb from Canberra...our guardian angels as it turned out.
Ray had been coming to this spot to camp each year for 13 years.
Not surprising he'd want to come here with his bride.
Yep...they were on their honeymoon.
Had a lot of laughs around the campfire that Ray would do that!!!
******
One day we just wandered through the gorges along the creek...swimming in the deeper holes...sunning ourselves on large blue grey smooth boulders...swimming again.
Another day I took Denise into Right Coolamon Cave...overalls, hard hats with torches...pretty professional.
I'd been in this cave before...only one I know where you go in one end and out another...most require one way in and out.
Entered a hole...then a crawl on our knees through a forest of cauliflower pillars of limestone...but no ordinary pillars.
They were all sheared off in the middle...separated...and displaced down and to the right about six inches...as if a giant knife had sliced them through the middle...and a sudden shift in the ground...a fault had separated them.
She was impressed.
Then into narrow tall caverns...like a string of
HOW ONCE WE WERE
Camping at Cave Creek pearls...adorned with limestone shawls and stalactites descending from the roof...stalagmites reaching up seeking to touch them.
A couple of caverns occasionally parallel to us...exploring their wonders.
I was conscious it was just Denise and I. I was experienced...she was not.
I was also conscious that the only light in there is from our torches.
Real black is if you turn off your torches. Blackness can overcome...and scare the life out of you.
I was in a cave once where we abseiled in...left me in a cavern with the camera gear...the cavern so large my dolphin torch could not light the roof...scared the life out of me...not the dark...not the bats flying around me...but the enormity of it.
So I was careful to ensure Denise felt comfortable and safe.
There's a spot where you go down feet first...through a J bend...that sucks you through like a slurping motion...into another cavern.
Denise was in one cavern and I was in the adjacent one. I think the J bend is just here.
Put my feet in to feel my way through.
Suddenly it closed...like a trap. My boots locked...legs caught...Denise calling
"You OK David?"
Really proud of myself.
"Yeh. I'll join you in a minute." No hint in my voice that terror was descending over me...numbing my body.
Seemed like an eternity before I got my feet free...no hint at all to Denise...
"Now where's that J bend?" Found it...carefully checked it...instructions and encouragement...
"Feel that breeze. The exit is not far ahead." We slipped through one after the other...a slurping sound just like I remembered...never quite heard that sound again...special moment.
A strong breeze led us to the exit...to bright light.
Exiting from the bowels of the Earth...no better feeling than the feeling when you get out...no better feeling. ******
Another day we went with Ray & Deb to Murray Cave...one of the prettiest caves I've ever seen...a long string of beautifully adorned caverns...easy walk through...until you reach the underground river.
Lots of broken pieces of limestone. In the early 19th century people would come with horse & dray and cart limestone formations into town for ornaments. Still pretty caves notwithstanding the damage.
Another day another cave miles away. Ray seems to know all of them.
It rained all day
that day...nicer underground than above...snug and warm in our tent with the sound of rain making me nervous how we're going to get out of here tomorrow.
Ray & Deb with their Kombi van...we with a Datsun 180B.
******
The Accident Breakfast around our small campfire...not raining now.
5 days at Coolamon Caves in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales showing Denise my fiance the joys of spelunking...lucky we got out of that cave where I got my feet stuck.
Both due back at work in Sydney tomorrow.
Farewells to Ray & Deb...following their Kombi...turn around that puddle...suddenly we are sliding sideways down the slope.
Yeeka...we are turning over.
Bang. Windows shattered. Smashed and wedged between two rocks...suspended upside down above Cave Creek. How are we going to get out of this one? ******
We are thrown onto the inner roof of the car. Neither of us had our seat belts on...ironic...seatbelts save lives...we both felt we were better off that we didn't have ours on.
The water was just there...another few inches and we'd have been in it.
Rocks
surrounded us...one large one each side holding the cabin in a sling...roof caved in...windows shattered...just enough room to crawl out...bit of blood on my head...otherwise both unharmed.
And there to meet us were Ray and Deb.
I looked in my rear view mirror and said to Deb "They've gone over the edge"...I couldn't believe it." ******
We examined the puddle I had gone around.
The front wheel had slipped into the LHS of the puddle which had forced the rear wheel to the edge of the slope to our RHS which pulled the front wheel out of the puddle which then also caught the edge. The track was eggshell thin dry and greasy underneath.
Ray had a winch.
It was just long enough to turn the car right side up but not long enough to pull us out.
Another caver arrived just after we rolled over. He had a rope.
With the rope and the winch we pulled the car back onto the track.
We'd scarcely enough time to pat ourselves on the back...karoomba...the heavens opened and the rain bucketed down...couldn't have been heavier.
Talk about lucky
timing. Gotta wait for the oil to settle in the engine before we can head off.
Farewell again to Ray & Deb...feeling pretty lucky I must say!
******
From good to worse Sometimes those feelings of being lucky give you the strength to go on. Sometimes it's a sign it's about to get worse. After torrential rain for an hour we started the engine. Turned over first time...let's go.
Twenty meters to the crossing for the creek.
Of course the water levels were up. Had to rebuild the crossing.
Got across...then onto the track...left wheel off the track in the wet grass and the right wheel on the middle ridge formed by 4WD tracks.
Travelled about three meters then crash.
We slipped right and into the wheel ruts...wheels spinning as the ruts were deeper than the car...suspended...yeeka.
And of course it started raining again.
But I had a pick in the boot...as you do...a mattock.
I dug out the middle ridge...drove a few more meters...dug out the middle ridge...drove a few more meters...dug out the middle ridge...drove a few more meters...pretty knackered.
Managed
to drive a couple of hundred meters...smiles of relief all round...dug out the middle ridge...drove a few more meters...gotta get off the track...our only way out is on the hills of heath bushes and grass.
We have many miles of this to go...middle of nowhere...windows shattered...wet and bedraggled.
So I gunned it up a low heath hill hoping for traction on higher ground...near the top...wheels spinning...slid backwards all the way down.
Tried it three times...same result...always nearly got there...always nearly...then slid all the way back down.
Abandoned then visited by angels...or is it the other way round? We tried everything...both covered in mud and scratches...like dogs trapped in a hole.
The only thing that kept us going was each other...and the belief God did not want us to die out here.
The vehicle was at the bottom of a hill...in low bushes...it ain't going anywhere...not even a spot to pitch a tent...mid afternoon by now...not even time to walk out of here.
A flash of blue.
Ray & Deb's Kombi returns.
"We waited at the park gate for an hour and you didn't come...knew something had to be wrong."
He had no problem with the track...his vehicle modified and higher clearance than mine.
Persuaded us that we had to abandon our car and they'd drive us to Adaminaby to get help.
I say
"persuaded" because I didn't want to go.
With windows shattered and crumpled roof we had no security.
But I had Denise to consider...and she was spent.
So I got my wallet...only got $30 left...the alternator repairs had made me skint...I think I left my camera bag...just us with a change of clothes...and into the back of the kombi.
I just sat there as we bounced along...being told to cheer up...being told all Denise wants is a shower...being told it would work out.
******
On faith alone Pulled up outside the Adaminaby Caravan Park...nearly dark.
"Caravan & Shower $30.00"...that's all we've got...gotta be providence...put a smile on Denise's face...I love this girl...talk about gutsy...
"We'll take it." Rang my father reverse charges and arranged for him to telegraphically transfer some money to the Adaminaby Post Office in the morning...that's Monday...and to let my work know what's happened and I won't be
able to run that case in the morning.
"&^%!$(MISSING)#"...they're going to be...who knows???
The Caravan Park proprietor gave us something to eat...had showers...they'd contacted a towie to pick us up to salvage the vehicle first thing in the morning...feeling pretty pleased with ourselves.
Best sleep...pretty pleased with ourselves.
Providence favours the faithful But the towie didn't turn up.
Found out there had been a few vehicles in prangs in the wet and as they were blocking roads they got priority.
Re-booked for 12 noon.
So at 9.30 a.m. we wandered to the Post Office to let them know a telegraphic transfer was coming after banks open at 10a.m.
Sign outside
"Hours 12 noon to 4pm"...&^%!$(MISSING)#...we're stuffed.
Couldn't contact my father so rang my father's bank in Sydney to warn them.
You wouldn't read about it!!!
The guy that answered the bank's phone in Sydney had my father standing next to him...and the bank hadn't even opened for the day!!!
And my father had got the details of the Post Office wrong and money was being sent to the wrong place!!!
Talk about saving the
day.
Winners are grinners The salvage worked just fine. We drove the vehicle out across the hills of bushes and grass...the weather had cleared and dried the vegetation sufficient for traction.
The cameras were fine...all intact...everything wet but no one had been in the area.
One problem.
Without a windscreen, insects were blown into our face and eyes making driving hazardous. The breeze on our faces froze our skin. We can't wear sunglasses while driving at night.
Picked up the money from Dad...paid the salvage...had a feed...bought some balaclavas & ski glasses which we wore while driving...and if we ever stopped had to rip them off to avoid boiling inside.
It was after all summer.
And while ripping along the highways...we had a clear run.
Every car in front pulled over to let us through!!!
Yep..must have looked pretty funny to see an orange 180B with no windscreens and a bent roof hurtling towards them...occupants in balaclavas and ski glasses...must have been quite a sight!
Honeymooners Three days late getting back to Sydney.
Dropped in to see Ray & Deb in Canberra on
the way.
And on our honeymoon months later...had a ski lodge to ourselves for two weeks on the banks of Lake Eucumbene in the Snowy Mountains owned by one of the partners at work.
And who better to join us...on our honeymoon?
Yep...reciprocal arrangements...we were at theirs...only proper they join us for ours. Ray & Deb...our guardian angels as it turned out.
Without them... I can't imagine how we would have got out of that one. Relax & Enjoy,
Dancing Dave
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littlewing
Cindy
You managed to kill a 180B???
Amazing! Still laughing at the image of you both with balaklavas and goggles :)