BETWEEN FRIENDS

Greetings...

Another year of Friends activities is drawing to a close and this issue of the newsletter is chock full of reports on activities of the last eight months.

The Friends working bee dates for 1998 didn't quite turn out as announced in the March 1998 issue of Between Friends. The working bee scheduled for the last weekend in June was delayed three weeks due to floods and tempests at Buchan. There was also a special Friends 'thank you' barbecue held at Buchan in October, which is covered later in this issue.

The first weekend in December is traditionally the last working bee for the year. It also plays host to the end of year barbecue and most importantly, the Annual General Meeting. I haven't been able to attend any working bees this year due to other commitments but I'll certainly be up at Buchan for the AGM weekend. I'll be able to see first hand the effect of the Friends hard work, and pitch in on whatever tasks are at hand. I'm looking forward to being there!

The next issue of Between Friends will contain the all important calendar of working bees for 1999 and it will be mailed out early in the new year.

The AGM will be held in the guide-hut at the Buchan Caves Reserve on Saturday 5th December 1998 at 8PM. The business of the meeting will include presentation of the Annual Financial Report, and will finish with the election of the new committee for 1999.

A free pre-meeting barbecue will be hosted by the Friends from about 6PM onwards outside the guide-hut. Salads and cooked meats are provided, but please bring your own refreshments. The barbecue is always a great chance for people to have a good chat with other Friends and the Caves Reserve staff. If you think you have some good ideas for Friends activities next year then feel free to bring them up.

The $2 annual membership fee becomes due at the AGM, so why not take the opportunity to renew your membership after the meeting.

7 - 9 March 1998

The Labour Day long-weekend of 7-9th March 1998 was a very successful weekend for the Friends. A tight-knit, efficient group of Friends camped in the Caves Reserve and got on with things. The first task on Saturday morning was to hold a meeting with senior staff of the Buchan Caves Reserve to plan out the programme for 1998.

After a short discussion we agreed the major project for the coming year will be calcite restoration in Fairy Cave. We moved the meeting to Fairy Cave to determine the best site for this work. In consultation with Ranger Dale Calnin, it was decided to concentrate on `Sciatica Alley'. We thought it could involve up to four specialist teams who will carry out different tasks. One team will use a high pressure water pump, to be acquired by the Friends, for the removal of lint and grime. Another team will be involved in macro mud removal while a third team will carry out micro mud removal (probably using toothbrushes on very delicate straws and shawls). The fourth group will address the slight, but growing, algae problem. As may be appreciated, all teams will need to act carefully and slowly - this is where caving skills should come in handy.

After lunch we drove up to the Potholes to carry out some maintenance on the Friends revegetation plot. We were pleased to find that, despite it being a drought, the little trees were surviving and even thriving. We planted about 150 trees, many from stocks I'd personally raised from seed at my home. These trees replaced the few trees that had not made the distance - barely 15% of the total 1,200 trees planted in the revegetation plot had died to date. We were greatly assisted on this occasion by having with us Iestyn and Anne: both have had considerable experience in revegetation projects.

In the evening we held a barbecue and get together with some of the staff from the Caves Reserve providing us with the opportunity to get to know the new manager, Mark Krause.

Sunday 8th March was devoted to more replacement of dead trees and general tree maintenance. It was also used to repair the eastern boundary fence where a cow and her calf had broken into the revegetation plot. Later in the day the donation bins in Royal Cave and Fairy Cave were cleared and the donations counted - $219 from the bins and $16 from the sale of bat pamphlets.

Another social evening in the Reserve saw Anne and Iestyn introduced to the "Tim Tam Slam". This was a chocolate coated biscuit used as a straw for coffee liqueur - very decadent.

An early start on the next morning had one team clearing old wire and rubbish from Fairy Cave while another team finalised plans for the coming year. With everything arranged and all jobs finished, there was a little time left over for some karst appreciation (ie. a visit to a cave or two) before we headed home to Melbourne.

Those who attended and helped on this Friends weekend were:

Peter Ackroyd	Iestyn Hosking	Michelle Tisdale
Mick Adler	Mark Krause	Sharni Tisdale
Dale Calnin	Anne Raner	Steve Wood
Cathie Cranston	Kyle Tisdale

18 - 19 July 1998

Friends: Peter AckroydMick AdlerDale CalninSteve Keating

Kyle Tisdale	Brenton Tulk
Michelle Tisdale	Jim Tulk
Sharni Tisdale	Rowan Wilson
Ashlea Tulk	Steve Wood

The meeting of the Friends of Buchan Caves had been postponed for three weeks due to the floods in East Gippsland in June. By the weekend of 18th and 19th July, the floods had receded and the worst of the damage had been cleaned up, but we still saw plenty of evidence of the devastation wrought by the water when Mick Adler and I drove down to Buchan on Friday.

We arrived at Buchan mid afternoon Friday and had time to check the trees in our revegetation plot at the Potholes karst area to the north of Buchan. The irony of the floods was that for the year prior to June, East Gippsland had been gripped in a severe drought so we feared that our young trees, planted in 1997, may have succumbed.

Upon investigation, Mick and I estimated that about half of the trees had been lost due to the drought. Some of the trees had done very well with a few of the acacias having grown to well over a metre tall and some of the eucalypts about one metre high.

Curiously, some of the healthy young trees appeared to have been cut off at ground level with a machete or similar implement. Neither Mick nor I could fathom who would commit such a senseless act of vandalism.

Later that night, once other members of the Friends started to arrive, we discussed our new project of calcite restoration in the tourist cave system.

The following morning we found we had a good sized group of 11 people interested in carrying out restoration work in Fairy Cave. Because of the recent floods, the cave had been closed to the public for three weeks but it was Parks Victoria Ranger, Dale Calnin's intention to get the cave up to standard and ready for opening to tourists in the next few days. Some of the work involved repairing flood damage in the cave - mainly muddying of paths and residual pools of water. The rest of the tasks required the use of a special high pressure pump to clean calcite decoration.

The cave was still carrying a flood overflow stream of water at about 0.3 litres/sec which made it unsuitable for the public but Dale estimated the water level would fall in a few more days.

While two teams set out to clean up the paths, using hoses and brooms, a third team carried in a small "Gerni" high pressure spray pump which had been kindly lent to the Friends by John Dunne from the Coles Distribution Centre. Dale had already indicated to us which areas of flowstone and other decoration needed to be cleaned. The main source of the grime seemed to be the hands and feet of tourists.

The Gerni pressure pump was small enough to fit almost anywhere and only required single phase power and a flow of water, readily available from the wash-water system in the caves. The wash-water system, partly installed by the Friends in the 1980s, is fed from the Dukes Cave outflow, so is calcite rich water drawn from the cave system itself.

The Gerni proved to be quite effective in removing surface dirt and grime from flowstone and solid stalactites and stalagmites. It was not excessively noisy in the confines of the cave and produced a nice atmospheric misty effect when it was operating.

Several sections of flowstone were cleaned by using the Gerni and, once completed, the hosing and sweeping crews followed up to finish the job. A standing pool of water in the Kings Chamber was drained by cutting a shallow channel and the resulting rubble removed to finish the day's activities.

All the Friends gathered for a barbecue held in the late evening with a few drinks and a few tall tales to round off a pleasant day.

On Sunday the Gerni was put to work again, this time on a dirty stalactite mass at the base of the steps leading up to the Blackwood Chamber. The stalactite group is very close to the path at this point and it clearly represents too great a temptation for sightseers' hands. The grime was washed off quite successfully by the water jet and the Gerni was packed up for the last time.

A tour through the cave with Buchan Caves Reserve manager, Mark Krause, showed that water was glistening on flowstone and pooled in normally dry gour dams. The cave was looking particularly good.

By midday the equipment had been removed from the cave and everyone had started the journey back to Melbourne after another successful Friends weekend.

Acknowledgment: John Dunne, Maintenance Manager of Coles Distribution Centre, Hampton Park, kindly made the Gerni pressure pump available for this Friends weekend and also helped gather information on pressure cleaning pumps.

"Gerni" High pressure spray being used by Steve Keating to clean flowstone in Fairy Cave.
Photo: P J Ackroyd, 18 July 1998

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11 October 1998

The Friends of Buchan Caves will turn 11 this year and partly to mark the long involvement and contribution of the Friends to making our parks better places, a thank you barbecue and get-together was held on Sunday 11th October 1998 by the Buchan office of Parks Victoria for those people who had donated their time and skills. About thirty members from the Friends of Buchan Caves, Friends of the Cobberas and individuals who had helped out in the parks over the years were invited. It was good to be able to chat with people who care about our national parks and who are prepared to do something to help. It was particularly encouraging to see the large number of people in attendance - a reflection of the commitment to conserving caves and karst.

On the same weekend a 'concrete bucket' transport trolley, designed and built by the Friends of Buchan Caves, was donated to the Buchan Caves Reserve. The trolley has yet to undergo field trials but the initial reaction by the Reserve staff is encouraging.

Peter Ackroyd

24 - 25 October 1998

A small but effective Friends group carried out some tree planting and some cave cleaning on this working bee weekend.

Saturday 24th started with discussions of future directions and projects between members of the Friends of Buchan Caves and Buchan Caves Reserve management.

The rest of the day was devoted to replacing trees lost from the Potholes revegetation plot due to drought and vandalism. Despite the hardships handed to these trees by the weather and the attentions of those who presumably don't want to see the trees succeed, they are making it. Some of the trees planted in April 1997 are already about a metre high. Those trees planted in 1994 in the original trial plot are well over four metres tall and now resemble the forest cover present in the 1890s. The new fence, constructed in September 1996 and repaired in September 1997 after some vandals had damaged it, is holding up well. Elsewhere in the Potholes paddock, trees which have grown through natural revegetation have been damaged or killed by cattle and horses.

After we had planted out all our trees and had packed up, a late evening walk around the Potholes paddock revealed some interesting and recent digging activity, especially in the northern section.

Sunday 25th was calcite restoration day and much scrubbing and spraying was rewarded by the beautiful appearance of the cleaned flowstone, stalactites and stalagmites at the beginning of 'Sciatica Alley' in Fairy Cave. It was pleasing to hear the compliments from members of the tourist party as they filed past us as we worked. Their words of encouragement and appreciation made it all the more worthwhile.

As mentioned in the November 1997 issue of Between Friends, the photograph reproduced below was displayed at the AGM on 6th December 1997 and as many names as possible were put to the faces by those present. The photograph was taken by Graham Parkes on the 2-3 March working bee weekend and unfortunately some of the faces are hidden in the shadows, so we will probably never know who they are. If you do happen to recognise someone who has a question mark against them then please let me know.

Glenn Baddeley

1	Val Townshend *	8	Kim Van Dyk	15	Geoff Hammond	22	Cathy Haycroft
2	Sharon Hodge *	9	Michael McBain	16	?	23	Tony Watson
3	Lyn Sebire	10	Andrew Wier	17	Peter Ackroyd	24	Josh Van Dyk
4	Anne Post	11	Ray Monish	18	John Van Dyk *	25	Zeb Van Dyk
5	Neil Chalmers	12	?	19	Bryan Gardam	26	Roger Taylor
6	Dick Baxter	13	Bill Cuffe	20	?
7	Alan Sutton	14	Gavan Duffy	21	Margot Wakeman

* Ed. Addendum 5th Dec 1998: Added names for 1, 2 (supplied by Lyn Sebire), 18 (supplied by John & Kim Van Dyk).