far out grotto

Why you should pay attention to the Conservation Amendment Bill as a caver.

The Conservation Amendment Bill is currently open for submissions to the select committee - Now extended to closing at midnight on the 13th of July 2026. This bill would allow the “disposal, sale or exchange” of 60% of our Public Conservation Land and rewrite the purpose of the Department of Conservation to make economic development their core function. FOG would like to encourage all our members who take joy in accessing our Public Conservation Land to read up on the Bill and make personal submissions.

Do you like being cold and wet? Do you like shooting lasers at each other then interpreting your dots to form something semi resembling a cave passage? Then come on a surveying trip!

This is exactly what myself, Sach, and Anya got up to on Saturday 26th June. What started off as a plan to to go mountaineering turned into a survey trip for Cave stream. A wonderful horizontal sporty cave by Castle Hill. The cave is an approximately 560m phreatic passage with a streamway which runs the length of the short system. Water levels do vary pending on rainfall/snow melt and there are a few short climbs which involve battling the water if your going upstream but when we went the water level varied from knee to thigh. I was very impressed to find my sports bra pretty dry despite me falling off a short 1m climb into a waterfall. Don’t worry though, the tablet survived.

If you are like me and love seeing the world, experiencing new culture and rather than actually doing that, you end up wanting to spend copious amounts of time underground then an international expedition is the trip for you.

It all sounds fun and all but as I learned on my expedition with Speleo club ‘Z’ in 2026, it’s a lot of trust your placing on an unknown entity and this can lead to disaster. My own experience saw a group leader with no concern for our safety and well being, only focused on his own wants and made it a truly miserable experience resulting in the majority of the group leaving the expedition early. Luckily for me, I had a wonderful travel partner and made a further amazing friend and together with two other wonderful expedition members, we made a dramatic escape back across the Laos boarder into Thailand where we had a fantastic time caving thanks to the wonderful John Spies and Fred Vishnevsky at the Cave Lodge in Ban Tham Lod.

Join Emma, as she shares her passion for the man made underground! A short presentation about mining in the UK and her experience of having a mooch around them.