Nullarbor – Mullamullang Cave – September 2013

This was our last cave for the expedition, and Nat saved the best for last, 12.3k of caving, if you have the stamina.  You walk down into the doline and then underground.  At first we had to clamber over rocks and boulders and then the floor of the cave flattened out for a while.  We walked along, and then, in front of us was this huge dune of sand (The Dune).  We walked around it and admired it, there was the temptation to climb it but we recognised that putting footprints in the sand of the dune just wouldn’t be right.  We walked along to a narrow section that we traversed along and then, a little further on the ceiling of the cave began to lower.

The Dune, taken from a long distance away, it is about 10 – 15m high. Photo courtesy: Dirk Stoffels

It was necessary now to crawl under a low ceiling through to the other side, there was a definite wind behind us (and when we were exiting, the wind was going the other direction, the cave actually breathing!), this is apparently called The Southerly Buster.

There are a number of passages leading off Mullamullang, one goes to the Coffee & Cream formations.  What was amazing about this cave was the variety of formations.  The coffee and cream formations looked just like that, very smooth and as if someone had poured milk coffee over rock and then added cream to it.  The formations are actually formed by very dark brown powder mixed with a very white powder to create the coffee and cream. The origin of the powders is apparently the result from roof fretting. The formations were very smooth and continued on for a long way, all the way to the end of the passage.

We retreated and walked further along and then came to the Salt Cellars passage.  Again, this was totally different, the formations were like salt crystals, and they had formed in amazing shapes.  We had to be extremely careful when we got to the end of the passage, crawling through on our stomachs, and being careful not to bang our helmets against the formations, that’s how fragile they were.

They had formed in amazing shapes and you could lay on your back and look at them for hours and still not see them all.

Natalie at the point where they turned around, not quite at the end.

We exited out and started our return to the surface, again passing that magnificent Dune.  Apparently this is one of the longest caves in WA, and if you want you can push to the end and there’s a spot where you can stay the night (it takes that long to get there), and then return the next day.  There’s a bit of a climb down for which you need a rope, but other than that, it’s simply a matter of climbing over fallen rocks.  Wendy and I decided that we didn’t want to push to the end, it was a big enough day for us just going into the passages that we went through.  Natalie, Josh and Ken continued on though, they didn’t get to the end but got to the site where cavers camp.

Before long we were back at the surface.

One of the few photos of the full group. Photo courtesy: Dirk Stoffels