Cave Diving Down Under

The continent of Australia is not much smaller than North America and about as diverse from a climactic and geological point of view. What this means is we have access to many, many separate karst and cave areas from the icy southern island of Tasmania to the tropical north of Western Australia. And the best part? Much of the cave bearing country is extremely remote, inaccessible and therefore unexplored! The same goes for our Kiwi buddies to the east, whose amazing DEEP caves are slowly revealing themselves to local and overseas cavers. So stick with me while I give you a quick “who’s who” and “where’s where” of Australian and NZ cave diving:

Right: Typical view of the gin clear water in South Australian sinkholes...Kilsby’s Hole. (Richard 'Harry' Harris)

Mt Gambier, South Australia

In the temperate south east of South Australia, lies the Mt Gambier karst region, birthplace of the Cave Divers Association of Australia (CDAA) and the most frequented cave diving region in the country. Primarily the domain of Victorian and South Australian cave divers, the area offers both classic deep sinkholes and long phreatic tunnels for divers of all levels. But the CDAA is a national organisation and divers from all over the country regularly fly in to dive these speccy sites. Some of the best known sites include Australia’s deepest cave (The Shaft at 124m, a giant sinkhole first bottomed out by Chris Brown, Tim Payne and current US resident, David Doolette), Another site, a spring system called Piccaninnie Ponds has recently had a new chamber discovered at 110m depth by Richard Harris, John Dalla-Zuanna and friends making it the third deepest in Australia at this time. Meanwhile the premier cave of the region Tank Cave, now has over 8km of honeycomb phreatic passage and it is still revealing new sections every year!

The Nullarbor Plain


Over 1500km to the west, the vast flat expanse of the Nullarbor (Null = no, Arbor = Tree) holds over one thousand, numbered karst features including the longest flooded caves in Australia. The most famous of these; Cocklebiddy was recently extended by 120m to an overall length of around 6.5km by Craig Challen and his team. Over the past few years, a number of divers including Tim Payne, George Yarra, Paul Hosie and others have spent countless hours mapping and surveying this and other nearby sites. Not far away on the Roe Plain, Paul Hosie has been making some amazing discoveries of bacterial colonies and interesting formations in caves like Olwolgin, Nurina and Burnabbie. Both these areas continue to hold great promise for future exploration and scientific discovery, and are partly protected by their remote locations.

The Nullarbor Plain...it’s very flat! (Richard 'Harry' Harris)

The Kimberley and the Ningbing Ranges


Near the top of Western Australia and into the tropics resides what is arguably Australia’s greatest natural landscape…The Kimberley. 2 years ago, Paul Hosie led a team of divers to map and explore the beautiful Kija Blue sinkhole…surely one of the most remote dive sites in the world. The maximum depth of over 111m makes it the second deepest in Australia. To the north of the Kimberley, Paul and local dry cavers have also been pushing a number of caves in the Ningbing ranges whose dull names (KNI19 etc) belie the extraordinary beauty of these sites. Central to these and many of Australia’s other cave mapping projects has been Adelaide based Ken Smith. Ken’s radio-location beacons or “pingers” have been widely used to mark hundreds of underwater survey points with surface GPS.

Jenolan Caves

One of Australia’s premier show caves dated at over 340 million years is found at Jenolan in New South Wales. These multi-level caves, born from river systems over the millennia, have been the focus of some hard core “British style” cave diving for many years even Rob Palmer has dived at Jenolan. The delightfully named "Slug Lake" was pushed close to 100m in depth in 1998 by Ron Allum along with the skills of other divers like Keir Vaughan-Taylor, Rod O'brien, Paul Boler, Al Warild, David Apperley, Michael Collins and Merv Maher just to name a few. Most of the diving here is done by cavers from clubs like SUSS and NHVSS; affiliated clubs of the Australian
Speleological Federation (ASF).

Right: Paul Hosie and Ken Smith in the doline at Kija Blue, Western Australia. (Richard 'Harry' Harris)

The Deep South

Down in Tasmania one finds multiple caving regions in the mountainous temperate rainforests. Cold-water (7 degrees Celsius) river resurgences are the norm here; typified by the Junee Resurgence whose second sump goes to nearly 70m depth then climbs back towards 50m. Here it seems to choke off but a connection to a system many kilometres away has been proven by dye tracing. So more progress can be expected here at some stage. The Payne/Doolette team has made the most recent advances in this system.

A number of other areas in Australia like the Barkley Karst and Camooweal areas are currently showing great promise for cave diving…definitely a case of watch this space!

New Zealand


New Zealand is the land of deep dry caves…the deepest in the southern hemisphere in fact like Nettlebed Cave on the South Island. Just around the corner from Nettlebed lies the Pearse Resurgence which at 182m depth (and still barreling off in to the distance horizontally!), presents significant logistical challenges. Helicopter only access, 7-degree water and high flow make this a formidable cave. Aussie Dave Apperley has made the greatest advances here over several years of exploration. In 2007 English diver Rick Stanton pushed the cave to 177m then this year, Australian Richard Harris managed to scrape a few more metres down to 182. Who knows where this one will end up? Not far away, Riwaka Springs and Blue Creek Resurgence present opportunities for both underwater and dry caving exploration. And that’s just a sample of the South Island caves!

The author prepares for a dive in the Pearse Resurgence, New Zealand. (Richard 'Harry' Harris)

In summary, antipodean cave diving is alive and well within the CDAA, ASF, NZSS and club spheres. Cave diver training in NZ is harder to come by but that hasn’t stopped the kiwi cavers pushing many of the systems. Check out these links for more info and think about a trip to Australia for OzTek 09 in Sydney next March.

ASF www.caves.org.au 


CDAA www.cavedivers.com.au 


NZSS www.caves.org.nz

Click on the SLIDESHOW tab above to see more pictures of cave diving in Australia.