In the depths of the earth

Sgt David Webb inside a cave at Wee Jasper. Photo by Cpl Wade Laube, 1JPAU(P)

By Cpl Wade Laube
Adventurous training is a business built on deception – deceiving people into thinking they are in danger when in reality they’re safe and sound in the hands of a Unit Adventurous Training Leader.

A number of future UATLs were being trained in the ins and outs of caving south of Canberra recently.

Adventurous Training Wing, ARTC, undertook its first UATL course in many months, with the task of preparing three people in the intricacies of caving.

To facilitate the course, soldiers from Holding Pl at Latchford Barracks were brought along for the ride.

Caving as a word, would incite fear in most of us, conjuring connotations of tight spots, dark places, and an easy area to get lost. In reality with a trained supervisor it really isn’t that big a deal.

But try telling that to Pte Krystle Lewis fresh out of Kapooka, as she stepped out into nothingness, on an abseil descent into Wee Jasper’s large cave system.

Pinning her hopes on the thin rope connecting her to trees on the surface, she descended into a rocky cavern, its depth totally elusive for the darkness until her feet feel the ground.

“I don’t like being in tight spaces like those. I prefer open spaces or I feel a little claustrophobic,” she said.

“But I had people there who knew what they were doing, and I had the others there encouraging me and guiding me through the caves. So I did it all.