Cooleman Caves

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Cooleman Caves

Postby Lizzy » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 11:13 am

Spent a few lovely days down at Blue Waterholes/ Cooleman Caves a couple of weeks ago.
1st day we drove in, setup camp and then did the Clarke Gorge walk to the waterfall. Hot day but the water was still freezing!! On the way back we visited Barber Cave which was good fun except for the bee (?) stings my son & I got while getting ready in the cave entrance! The exit was a bit of a tricky climb out where I had to haul the youngest up.
Visited by Brumbies in the night- also saw them on the walk.
Day 2 we walked up Nicole Gorge and visited Cooleman and Murray Caves. We all really enjoyed Murray cave especially- some fun little squeeze/crawl throughs. after that we continued on the circuit walk in the boiling heat back to the campground. We were VERY refreshed after another dip in the Blue Waterholes.
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby Lizzy » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 11:18 am

A couple more
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby GBW » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 11:20 am

Nice Lizzy, it's a top spot.
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby north-north-west » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 12:03 pm

You can connect Murray and Cooleman (if they're the ones I'm thinking of). Tight flatteners with a jink and not for everyone, but great fun.
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby Lizzy » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 12:25 pm

NNW I think it’s Cooleman and Cooleman Right(?) that connect- we went in but didn’t get through.
Murray is a fair bit further up the creek on the other side
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby Xplora » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 2:34 pm

Plenty to see and do around there. Great spot. The old homestead with the newspaper as wallpaper. Great reading. Some good fishing apparently as well when the river is flowing.
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby north-north-west » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 5:00 pm

Lizzy wrote:NNW I think it’s Cooleman and Cooleman Right(?) that connect- we went in but didn’t get through.
Murray is a fair bit further up the creek on the other side


May be. Ten odd years ago I did it and not an area I've been back to since. Definitely two on the same side of the creek, but the entrances a surprising distance apart, given how long it took for the internal connection.
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby Lizzy » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 6:27 pm

Here it is NNW
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Re: Cooleman Caves

Postby north-north-west » Sun 21 Jan, 2018 6:54 pm

That looks like what I remember, although there were also a number of dead ends there, plus a couple of extra bits that rejoined around the really tight bit of the connection. There wasn't a map like that in the area when i did it - or at least, not one I saw. I just pushed through because it looked and felt like it would go - and it did.
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