Harwoods Hole, Starlight Cave

Brendon had been trying to convince me to go caving with him for quite some time. Eventually I gave in and agreed to go to Harwoods Hole, the biggest dropshaft in the southern hemisphere.

After staying in the NCG hut on friday night, we drove to the entrance and lugged the 200m rope to the edge of the hole. (weighs a bit when its wet eh?)

Its a bright rope eh?

We scrambled about 20m down a gully to the top bolt station. From there it was a 30m rap on a near vertical slab to the rebelay station. Then you get to pass the rebelay hanging in space, 146m above the nothingness of the giant dropshaft. Its definatley one of the more intimidating places I've been and definately the most impressive rappel.

Brendon rigs the top anchor

Looking at the rebelay station from the top anchor.
(that ain't the bottom you can see either..)

On the way down, someone began throwing soccer ball sized rocks over the edge, making for a rather quick and scarier than anticipated descent..


From the bottom of the dropshaft, we scrambled down a large scree into Starlight Cave. I was amazed by this cave, which was big enough to drive a mini-bus through for the first half. There were dozens of amazingly green/white/blue pools to rap past, climb around or marvel at.



The second half was a fair bit trickier with a few slightly squeezy sections. I'm not a caver, so they were a little interesting...

Brendon on one of the many short raps in the cave

About to exit Starlight

Once out of the cave we enjoyed a nasty climb back up a loose scree to the rim and back to de-rig and retreive the 200m cord.