18
OCTOBER
2006
OCTOBER
2006
|
18 OCTOBER 2006 |
Recce - Ged,
Zhanghai, Mr. Hou
From Lichuan town, we headed north-west to investigate a river sink highlighted
on our topographic map. We arrived at Chang Le village and followed a 4x4 road
to its end. Crossing paddy fields we arrived at Dayan Dong in ganja fields.
The dry fossil cave was only 100m long however the wet cave at river level was
low and would warrant further exploration. We returned to the vehicle and took
the road back to Lichuan. On the way, we stopped off at Xian Nu Dong or 'Fairy
Cave' (Dong=Cave), a dry river sink that needs another visit.
Next, we took a small road and crossed fields that led to Shi Aokan Dong, a
small entrance on a scrubby hill. This cave was not explored.
Xiangshui Dong Tiankeng
Back out on the Tuanbao road, our
next stop was He Jia Ping village where we quite remarkably stumbled on a huge
Tiankeng (large collapsed doline with limestone cliff walls and created by a
cave system beneath that has undermined the surface). The tiankeng was called
Xiangshui Dong and was a real gem for us to find. Another small road from here
took us to a majestic entrance with "elephant nose" arch outside.
At the nearby village, we were greeted by the ritual killing of a pig!
Cave near Tanbao - Resembles and elephant trunk
Villagers kill a pig
Bruce spent the day buying computer accessories for one of the laptops and doing
map work on his PC.
Tony, Deng, Niu, Harvey took a separate vehicle thinking they were heading for
the cemetery cave that had been seen from the road at the foot of the cliffs
beyond the treeline on a previous day. Instead however, they were taken to 'Tail
Cave' above Chang Chao Village. Tony and Harvey surveyed a fair bit of passage.
Office work followed in the evening and Zhanghai informed of of a possible skylight
entrance that might access Teng Long Dong's underground river. We discussed
tasks for the next day which included the passages beneath the dry river bed
to the east.
Some entrances into the TLD were discounted from exploration having been explored
by the Belgians to their sumps that exist all year round.
