ADELAIDE, Australia (24 Oct 2008) — Scuba diver Simon Doughty has taken hundreds of people on tours of Sunshine Coast dive sites in his time but few, if any, of them would have been willing to sign up for his most recent adventure. There were no maze-like shipwrecks or pretty coral beds to gaze at on this trip, just an impenetrably dark and humid underwater cave beneath the Nullarbor with no known end. The stifling and claustrophobic confines of a cave appeal to Simon just as much as the big blue. And if experienced cave divers can be compared to climbers who scale the world's tallest peaks, then Cocklebiddy Cave might be the Mount Everest of Australian cave diving sites. The cave is about two days drive from Adelaide below a vast expanse of dusty red plains where the cattle stations are bigger than many European countries. In fact it was the Europeans, in the form of a French caving expedition, who created history in 1983 when they travelled an unprecedented 6.4 kilometres through the cave. The French team's record was broken in 1995 by an Australian named Christopher Brown, who bettered the record by a mere 20 metres. With Brown's record in mind, Simon and seven other cave divers from South Australia and Western Australia set out to attempt to go where no men had gone before. The complexity of the challenge meant well-drilled safety procedures, technical efficiency and a meticulous plan, months in the making, underpinned the record attempt. The first part of the dive involved ferrying equipment like dive scooters and extra air tanks up the cave so they could be replaced as the team progressed. The physically gruelling reconnaissance was only made tougher when the team had to climb out of the water and haul heavy equipment over 40 metre high boulders that had collapsed from the ancient cave's limestone roof, blocking any further access into the underwater tunnel. "It's pitch black because it's only part of the roof fallen in so there's no daylight at all and a lot of these places are high in humidity and carbon dioxide as well," said Simon. "In some instances you needed a regulator in your mouth to breathe because of the high carbon dioxide levels while you're climbing over these damp piles of rock with only your torch. "Sometimes you could only take one piece of equipment at a time, so it became a very tiring and laborious process." | | A cave diver works his way through a narrow passage. But the tough going through the narrow underwater tunnel gave way to wonder when it opened up into a vast chamber known as Toad Hall. "There is a slate at Toad Hall and every diver that makes it there gets to read about the 'secret of Toad Hall' and write their name on the slate. "I was person number 50 to visit Toad Hall. "Many divers have been to Cocklebiddy Cave five or six times and are yet to make Toad Hall." It's a sight almost none of us will ever behold and frustratingly Simon would not be drawn on Toad Hall's secret other than to say he had not expected much, only to be blown away at what he saw. The big moment for the group was when word reached them that they had travelled at least 6.5km and laid an extra 120 metres of line in the cave. Simon said one of the divers arrived at a point where the tunnel was less than 46 centimetres high, forcing him to lay line dive with his air tank held out in front of him until he physically could not fit through. It may have seemed close to the cave's end, but Simon believed Cocklebiddy had more secrets to share yet as diving technology and equipment improved. "I think with some gardening (a term meaning to move rocks to create more room to travel further down the cave) in the future, this cave will continue further but we don't know that yet. "Some of the best, but by far the toughest, diving I have ever done." |
