After the King’s Birthday Charleston Meet came to a close, I ended up taking a detour to Sydney. My intentions in Sydney was to get some admin done, see the family and attend some work event, then squeezing some surfing in during the weekends. Because, lets be honest, who goes to Sydney to go caving (I’ve been spoiled rotten by caves in the Nelson region). Despite being born and raised in Australia near amazing surf, I haven’t surfed in any meaningful capacity. So I scramble for a day meeting people through Facebook Marketplace to get all I need squared away. As soon as I finish collecting gear, I do a lil post to my story on Wednesday night looking for people to go surfing with.
About an hour later, I get a message from National University Caving Club’s Britt asking if I wanted to join in a cave rescue exercise. Having no intentions of being underground in Australia, I have left all my caving stuff back home. So begins a new scramble to get enough cave gear to allow me to participate in the exercise. With a little extra help from an Alex Motkya, I was completely equipped to undertake a weekend of rescue training.
Saturday morning comes around, I meet with Alex at 6:30 in the morning to carpool down to Bungonia. During the drive, I found out that this rescue exercise is a part of the Cave Rescue section of the VRA (Volunteer Rescue Association). After a while, we arrive to Bungonia and meet the rest of the crew. There were about 16 of us all up with 4 of us new to cave rescue (I was considered a new to rescue person). After a quick brief, we were split into 2 teams of 8.
I quickly suited up with a mix of borrowed and “this will do” gear, iconically represented with oversized cotton overalls and trail runners (with gaiters which got the Aussies curious if that was standard Kiwi caving kit). We then set off into the cave. It was a dry cave (think not even a puddle dry) with about 6 pitches for a non injured caver. The whole team made it down to the bottom with an empty stretcher. We had 4 pitches planned to rig (a mix of joining pitches together and a shortage of gear), going from bottom to top. My first task was manning the releasable redirect on the top of pitch 1 (we’re counting from the bottom up). It was a simple task and nothing too noteworthy.
My second task was the fun one; rigging and controller for pitch 3 which combined 3 of the commuter pitches. With some help and advice from more experienced cavers, we came up with a plan. Some high anchors (selected with the much appreciated assistance of the wise ones) allowed us a straight enough shot up all 3 of the pitches, then a Tyrolean (tracking line) to get the stretcher onto solid ground. The default hauling method here is a counterbalance and my shiny CR1 quals meant I wasn’t familiar with this forbidden magic. What was more nerve racking was how to get the stretcher on the Tyrolean and getting it vertical. I was told it would require something called a head foot manoeuvre. It was explained briefly to me, made sense theoretically but whether I could execute practically, only time could tell.
So the hauling began, the stretcher shortly made it to the transition from vertical to horizontal movement where I was stationed. It was showtime. Up, safety on, down, clip the head from the haul to the Tyrolean, up, clip the foot from the haul to the Tyrolean. It was done. Only a minor hiccup which was forgetting to detach the safety and the stretcher was out of my hands. After derigging and packing up, the stretcher was only a few vertical metres from getting out. I gave a bit of assistance in the final stretch and the ‘patient’ had made it out to the welcome embrace of the night sky.
After hastily gathering the gear in the bags, we met the other team in the carpark who got out slightly earlier than we did. A short drive back to camp. Dinner with some very carbonic water. Some late night yarns with the locals about caving experiences with foul air. End of day 1. Day 2 was the sorting of all the rescue kit in the appropriate bags then going our seperate ways.
The exercise showed me that they didn’t have to be a huge exercise with a lot of personnel. It could be a group of 8-10 motivated members with a borrowed stretcher and a free day. It left me yearning for more cave rescue training exercises like that in New Zealand. And a special thanks to Britt, Alex and the rest of the VRA Cave Rescue squad for having me along.