Quotes From the Land Down Under

We went caving this weekend. There was a lot of belly crawling, river walking, rolling, sliding, crawling, squeezing and a little crying and grunting. We saw cool formations, salamander-like things, and many small brown bats (which were hibernating). My arms are bruised and I'm happily tired.

We did some tight crawls; one was without headlamps and was magical. Another was long and tight, squirling around stalagmites with a final pinch at the end to a magical room called the "radon room" because someone once tested it and found it to have extraordinary levels of radon in it. We didn't stay there long, but it had incredible formations and crystals.

At first, I felt like that part in the Goonies when they found that ship. I actually said, "Down here, we're on our time!" These 13 year olds didn't pick up on it. (They did, however, get a Star Wars reference to the big worm holes on that other planet.) One kid hid under a ledge and grabbed my ankle with a Gremlin-like noise. It freaked me out. I'll tell you what! He claimed it to be one of the highlights of his trip. Hey, I do what I can to keep the kids happy.

While we were exploring, someone got the song, "I come from the land down under..." stuck in everyone else's heads. The Gremlin made some comment about calling Australia "the land down under" because it was the closest to hell without burning up.

Someone retorted, "That's not true. You can burn in Australia. From the sun. It's called a SUNburn."
.............

Before going to sleep (at about 8pm), several kids were hanging out and fooling around. As they were walking back to their sleeping bags, the Gremlin said to me, "You know, Katie, I just found out that fun does come at a price." He paused, and then pulled out his broken spare flashlight. As he held it between us, he continued, "And it costs $5.99."

We slept in a basecamp that was about 20 feet up from the main cave. The cave has a slick clay floor, and although there are steps worn into the cliff climbing up to this large loft, it's slippery and steep. So we set up a handline to ascend with our packs and descend to the river when necessary. At night, we pulled it up to the top. Despite the treacherous approach, we had visitors in the night. First, two folks who seemed to be with a group came up, saw the rope and one of the instructors, and went back to tell their group that they'd have to find another spot. That was fine and respectful.

The second time, however, seemed more usual to our cave camping experiences. We've found that drunk local people seem to come into the cave around 1am. They seem to throw rocks, smoke cigarettes, drink, yell, and scare the blood out of me. The last time we camped with our kids in the cave, we were in a more exposed spot where it wouldn't be hard to walk right to us and mess with us or our packs. I was a lot more relaxed sleeping up in the loft-- at least when I went to sleep.

When the loud people came splashing and yelling, and when I could smell the cigarette smoke, I felt my primal fear. There's something really vulnerable about being in my sleeping bag and hearing them approaching. I could feel my heart panting and I made myself as small as possible. I'm glad that one of my co-instructors was "guarding" us by sleeping near the entrance to our camp. I'm glad that these people didn't hurt us. Two guys actually climbed up the slick entrance. I listened as they yelled down, "Hey, ya'll wanna rope?"

Someone from below said, "Why? Is there one there?"

At this point, our guarding co-instructor said, "Hey!"

The guys yelled to him, "Ya'll campin'?"

He said, "Yeah."

There was a slight pause before the guys said, "Ya'll sleepin?

Our co-instructor said, "Yeah," but he told us the next morning that he wished he had replied, "No, we're just waiting here in the dark at 1:30 in the morning for our human sacrifice to arrive. I guess you're it." I'm glad he didn't say that. I'm glad that the only bruises I have are from the clay and rock. Fun, after all, DOES come at a price.