The Soggy Wombats Australian cave diving team has made some new discoveries at the Pine Cave system in Mount Gambier.
During routine survey work, the team discovered a massive data gap in Crazy Czech Room (CCR), a 20-meter/66-foot-wide chamber at the end of the known tunnel. The CCR, discovered in 2002, is situated beneath a forestry road and can be accessed through a complex route that includes deep swims and narrow rock piles.
The south-west side of CCR, the siltier area, produced solid data and showed only collapsed dolomite, which made the unexplained void on the north even more intriguing. If the cameras weren’t recording a wall, the team reasoned, perhaps no wall existed at all.
An investigatory dive provided results that demanded further exploration.
On the first dive to the area, the silt cleared unusually quickly, indicating a flow that is rare for Mount Gambier. A GoPro camera on a selfie stick captured a jumbled room beyond, large enough to turn in and promising enough to investigate further.
Further dives took time, but eventually photogrammetry revealed a gap that led to a significant new passage and a likely link toward Stinging Nettle.
The latest finding has opened up a whole new avenue for exploration in the Pine Cave system in Mount Gambier, underscoring the importance of using data-driven methods to inform cave exploration.
