BETWEEN FRIENDS

A Warm Welcome,

You are no doubt surprised by this mid-year issue of Between Friends. The main reason for its appearance is to remind members of the next working bee, which is in two weeks time (June 17th-18th). It will be a special occasion because it coincides with the Annual General Meeting of ACKMA Inc. (Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association) at Buchan. This event draws cave and karst managers from all over Australia and New Zealand. We will be there to showcase to ACKMA the positive achievements made by the Friends over the years, and the benefit to the Buchan Caves of having such a volunteer group.

We still have an outstanding $3,000 grant for interpretation signs in the reserve. All things being equal, two signs will be ready for installation on the June working bee weekend. The signs will be located at the beginning of the F. J. Wilson walk (near the main administration offices) and the beginning of the Spring Creek walk (at the first bridge past the kiosk). The text appears later in this newsletter.

Another initiative by the Friends has been to purchase a heavy-duty Gerni high pressure water cleaning unit, using nearly $1,800 donated by the public over the past couple of years to the Friends donation bins in the tourist caves. The cleaner will be unveiled and used for the first time, to help in the cleaning and restoration of calcite and other features in the caves.

It promises to be a good weekend, so I hope to see you there. Remember to book accommodation, as there will be many ACKMA people in town. If the weather is kind there will be a free barbecue at the Guides Hut commencing at 6PM on the Saturday. Bring your own drinks!

Working Bee Report

26 - 27 February 2000

Glenn Baddeley, 6 June 2000

Friends:

Glenn BaddeleyDale Calnin	Erica Maggs
George BradfordJack Lewendon	Wendy Shannon

This weekend saw the culmination of a $1,000 Centenary Grant given to the Friends to provide and install new hand rails in Fairy Cave.

Jack, Dale and George had already done some preparation work prior to the weekend, such as concreting of walking areas and painting the railing pipe with a special resin.

The rails were installed on one side of the last flight of stairs leading down from the Fairy Cave entrance to the open area above the steps to the Eastern Extension. The new rails extend another 15 metres to where the path does a bend to the right. The old steel cable hand rails were removed, and the solid steel uprights were bent over slightly and trimmed off by about 10 cm to accept the clamps for the new rails.

Each section of rail was 6.5 metres long and had to be bent on-site using a hand operated hydraulic pipe bender. Most of the sections required several bends and it was a long process of trial bending and fitting to achieve just the right shape. Each section was then clamped in place.

The old and unsightly chicken wire was removed from between the uprights. This will be replaced with stainless steel cable at a later stage; for the moment some "belly wires" were put in place using light fencing wire to provide the required safety to prevent people from falling under the rails or straying off the defined path. We had quite a difficult time drilling holes through the uprights due to the extremely hard 40 mm of solid steel.

All of the activities were carried out on Saturday. The barbecue was called off due to lack of support, so Glenn and Erica had dinner at the pub instead.

Spring Creek Walk

This superb walk splits into two sections which meet at the Spring Creek falls, where there is a viewing platform. The walk is 3 km return and takes about 1 1/2 hours to complete.

A short distance along the track to the left, the rock type changes from the grey Buchan Caves Limestone to the older Snowy River Volcanics. The track then divides in two. The higher Tea-tree Track is an adventurous walk that has some steeper areas.

The lower Kanooka Track is much easier and criss-crosses the creek through remnant Riparian Rainforest vegetation. While walking along this track have a look at the mossy rocks, the beautiful ferns and the trees dominated by Kanooka Tristaniopsis laurina. You may be able to see lyrebird scratchings, Gippsland Water Dragons sunning themselves, Kangaroos, King Parrots and other wildlife.

F. J. Wilson Walk

Fredrick Wilson was appointed as the first supervisor of Buchan Caves Reserve in 1907. Before coming to Buchan he spent most of his career working at Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. He was 66 years of age when he started at Buchan and was still very active. Although a quiet and reserved man, Wilson played a very significant role in the original development and history of the tourist caves at Buchan. He retired in 1921 at the age of 80.

About 50 metres from here on the left side of the track you will find the entrance to the Federal Cave, an old tourist cave. It is more than 400 metres long and contains strikingly beautiful formations. In 1915, Wilson and an employee W. H. Bonwick discovered Federal Cave by following a stream passage leading from Royal Cave. The stream flows through Fairy Cave, Royal Cave, part of Federal Cave, Dukes Cave, and finally flows into the swimming pool.

Federal Cave was opened to visitors in 1917 and was lit by a power generator until 1970, when mains power was connected to Fairy Cave and Royal Cave. Federal Cave was closed and sealed off, however in recent times it has been re-opened and may be viewed on a specialised cave tour.

At the bottom of both signs....