Planinska Jama - 8th Aug 2009
Saturday August 8th 2009
Members present: Adrian Turner, Andrew Vick, Andy Tricklebank, Catherine Moody, George Bunyan, Hayley Clamp, Laura Bennett, Luke Brownbridge, Mark Sims, Matt Gosling, Max Spicer, Thomas Blakey
Report by Matt Gosling
Planinska Jama has an impressive 100 meter high entrance arch through which flows the River Unica. Remnants of an old water mill add further character to this unique venue. Five hundred meters in, the cave splits into two paths at the confluence between the rivers Pivka and Rak that form the Unica. Our guide introduced himself whilst handing out buoyancy vests to us all. The cave was once a tourist attraction but now the engineered walkway, that once presumably took many paying visitors into the depths of the cave, barely stands, all derelict and wrapped in ruin. It lies in a reduced and intermittent condition, its dark dying profile reminding us that though we may temporarily appease nature and its primal force, we may never tame or eliminate its power and stamp on its ability to refresh and change things anew. It was this walkway however that we were required to follow for the first stretch of our adventure into the cave. At times the route led us down artificially excavated tunnels through the cave walls and at one point we came across a part of the walkway that had totally collapsed in a meter long section, exposing a fifteen to twenty meter plummet to the rocky banks of the Unica below. We passed this section by walking along a single wooden plank that had been placed across the gap and that bounced against the rhythm of our traversing feet.
Upon reaching a collapsed bridge on the old tourist trail we were required to scramble down a large slope of rocks to where our three inflatable rafts and oars were waiting silently in the darkness for us. We split into three teams to load the boats. Ade, Laura, Hayley and George were in my boat and we worked as a team to navigate the fascinating mile long boat ride into the further reaches of Planinska. The headlights of my friends on the other two boats, ahead of ours, shone silently roaming in the darkness like glistening apparitions. We saw an unprecedented number of gleaming white Olms (Proteus Anguinus) which were swimming around in the water around the boat, their tails thrashing about and their strange external gills splayed open to collect oxygen. They really do look like baby dragons. I had expected that we would be lucky to see any during our whole time in Slovenia but they seemed to be taking over the show here, given the amount of water in this cave and the frequency with which we were now spotting them there must be thousands if not tens of thousands in this one cave. So much for being a solitary organism, they are a successful species, colonizing the harsh cave environments with ease and vigour. At some points we had to navigate the boat through labyrinths of rocks that approached and at times breached the surface of the water. This was really good fun.
At the end of our boat journey the profile of the cave belled out into a large chamber and in the right hand corner we moored our rafts up against the banks. The guide led us up the rocks to a rift with a lot of calcite flow and features. At the end of this rift after some stooping and crawling we were led up a quality free climb to a section of passage that I can only describe as other worldly. Chamber after chamber, we came upon sprawling grottos of unimaginable beauty. Calcite curtains, stalactites, stalagmites, gour pools, flowstone formations bleeding into one another, all with a gleaming purity that shone out of the darkness. I said to Hayley who was just in front of me “Good God we have stumbled into Santa’s Grotto” everywhere you turned there were treasures crafted by the grace of the Earth. The crazy thing was that as we rounded a bend we came upon the most incredible formation I have ever seen. Taller than a man yet in every place shimmering and pristine, the guide pointed at it and said “Ghost!” I must say though that the formation resembled Santa Clause much more closely, it was almost uncanny. “And there is Santa” I remarked, “that is crazy” said Hayley. In one of the many gour pools I saw the most insignificant animal you could ever imagine. At first I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a human hair it was so thin, but it tumbled around and moved with a strange amount of purpose. Caves never cease to throw up weird and wonderful surprises! At one point the guide got us to turn our lights off and shone his light through a flowstone curtain revealing warming red pigmentations that ran in bands down the feature. The place was fascinating.
After emerging back at the boats the guide pulled a bottle of a locally brewed spirit from behind a rock and enthused us all to take a swig. It was certainly potent and warmed up our cockles for the return journey. At the end we dragged the boats on top of one another and I asked the guide if I could take a swim in the river. He said “sure, go ahead!” So I jumped in and swam around. It was refreshing to say the least. In order to avoid hypothermia I didn’t stay in there too long. As the entrance showered us in warm sunlight we agreed that this was definitely one of the highlights of the holiday, totally incredible. Thank you again Slovenia!
