Monsters in the Duhlata Cave

If you go deep into a cave, you may encounter monsters! Or at least, white stalactite dental work :-)

The monsters may attack unsuspecting cavers:



We also saw what appeared to be someone who apparently misbehaved in some manner and got turned into a salt column:



The Duhlata cave lies under the Vitosha mountain near Sofia, Bulgaria. It is the longest cave in Bulgaria, with continued exploration activities reaching up to 26 km. I joined a tour in this interesting cave as part of the Eurospeleo 2019 activities.

This cave was the site of a famous Bulgarian cave rescue in 2010, when 7 people got stranded in the cave due to rising flood water. They were eventually rescued, but the situation also lead to the closing of the cave. To enter through the locked gates everyone must now acquire a permission from the city's mayor.

Our tour was quite varied. Entering the cave brought about the most challenging squeeze of the trip on the first few meters. Then we continued through various descents (nervously not belayed) until we reached one of the six rivers crossing through it at the level -64 meters. Following the river on a narrow but high passage you can reach the monster room with the white stalactites, but there are varied cave forms throughout the cave:

I personally found the unroped climbing sections and the few constrictions most difficult on the trip. Here are some pictures of the narrow or low passages:





But it was a wonderful tour overall, and a great group. Very nice to have met more cavers from around Europe. Here are some pictures of the team having breaks, helping each other in the climbing sections, etc:

At the end of the day, I felt like I deserved a glass of wine, so I went for the "Speleobar". Fortunately, I was able to find seating quickly. (This was like 1min after opening, later it filled more...)

This article has also appeared in TGR. Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. See all the caving and urban exploration stories at planetcaver.net and theurbanexplorer.net, or take a look all the stores at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Hiking to the abandoned missile base

The base is not easy to find; there's a lot of tours on sale to visit the military wonders of Vis, but little actual information. I discovered the location of the base by looking at Google Maps satellite photos, but the Secret Croatia blog also helped...

On the there are eerie rock "tents" that disguise ventilation shafts and escape stairs to the large bunker under the hill. The escape stairs can also reached from inside the bunker, but I did not dare to climb them on this visit. They look inviting, however :-)



The bunker itself is a large, curving tunnel designed for large mobile missile launchers. Both ends have been covered by wires and painted styrofoam.





At the middle of the tunnel there are side roads and bombproof doors leading to odd, tile-floored rooms. Their purpose is a mystery.





If you are interested in visiting, look west from Podhumlje on Vis. The access is difficult, I decided to park my car and walk kilometres instead of getting stuck on the way back, like another car did. The walk in the falling darkness made my trip even more eerie than it already was.

This article has also appeared at TGR. See all the caving and urban exploration stories at planetcaver.net and theurbanexplorer.net, or take a look all the stores at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Snow White Hall Photography Trip

Jukka and I wanted to continue our photography experiments further up in the Lummelunda cave. The most interesting stalactites are in the Snow White Hall (Snövitsalen), beyond the half-way point in the cave. This turned out to be a very long trip, however, and one where we run out of all of our lights...

What we thought to be maybe a three-hour trip turned out to seven hours. First, it is slow going to drag equipment sacks while crawling or dragging yourself forward on your stomach. Second, we took an unplanned photography stop to let the rest of our bigger group proceed on their own. But third, it takes a long time to shoot, even all you take is photos from a small group of stalactites. Setting up the lights takes a long time, particularly while trying to avoid the equipment getting muddy. And many, many different views of the same stalactites from different directions :-)

The Snow White Hall is a bit past the Inre Sjön, a small lake and a sump that is pumped empty so that  cavers can pass forward. But Inre Sjön is maybe a kilometer of crawling and dragging into the cave, so it takes time. When we settled to go back we were already tired and the long path back made it only worse. As we were nearing the easier parts of the cave, Jukka's light went out. His second light had for some reason already stopped working.

But I was so tired that I didn't even hear his complaint about the light, and we continued forward, I guess with the help of my light. I had a backup light, which we needed when we wanted to take a few additional photographs from the final boat ride in the cave. By now I had understood that Jukka's light was out, and I gave my backup light to him. But soon that failed. As we arrived on the boat harbour my main light died, and we were now in complete darkness. Easy to walk back on the man-made exit tunnel, but little unnerving to have run out of light, even if we were close to the exit.

Lesson of the day: have at least three lights on everyone, even if you think your trip will be short. I plan to acquire some extra batteries for my laps as well, to go for three lamps and one extra battery.

More photos:

The crack and the crackhead:

Jukka taking photos:

This article has also appeared in TGR. Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. See all the caving stories at planetcaver.net, or take a look all the stories at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko and Jukka Palm. All rights reserved.

Day at the beach (underground)

My vacation started after midsummer. And the first thing one does on a vacation is to go on a beach, of course. Underground.

For three years, I've joined the Swedish cave association's week of researching the Lummelunda cave in Gotland. The cave is a protected natural monument, and is only open for this research one week a year. Around 30-40 cavers gather at the campsite on the sea beach, this time from Sweden, Finland, France, and New Zealand. The cavers explore the cave in various ways, some on the dryer parts of the cave by crawling around, others diving.

On our first day at the cave, the Finnish cavers Ralf Strandell, Jukka Palm and myself wanted to have an easy start in the largest tunnels. We also wanted to try out the photography techniques we had learned in last year's EuroSpeleo course.

We headed to the most photographic tunnels. The watery, muddy, and yes, even sandy subway-size tunnels are a short boat ride and walk away from the entrance of the cave. There are several beaches in the bends of the river that runs through the tunnel and we set out to see what kind of photographs we could make there. It worked out well!





We also saw a nice fossil under the water. Some old and some new life:



Equipment setup:

• Camera (mine is a Nikon SLR)
• Flash controller Yongnuo YN-622 N-TX i-TTL, to control a number of flashes that have suitable triggers. The flash controller is attached to the flash shoe of the camera.
• Flash trigger Yongnuo YN-622N II to attach to the flashes.
• Flashes (mine are Nikons)

I have to say though, one thing to worry about in caving is bad air:

This article has also appeared in TGR. Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. See all the caving stories at planetcaver.net, or take a look all the stories at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko and Jukka Palm. All rights reserved.

Veliki Slap Cave

In the summer I hiked around the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. It has some well known caves (more of them in another blog article) but I also run into a small cave on the path to the biggest, 78-meter waterfall, Veliki Slap.

The cave is maybe 15 or 20 meters long, a small tunnel with some stalactite forms. It can be found from the path descending from the hills above down to the waterfall, just before the short man-made tunnel on the path.

The coordinates to this cave are approximately N 44.90182 E 15.60938.

Entrance:

Views lower down:

Underwater picture from the lake:

Inside the cave:

Man-made tunnel next to the cave:

The big waterfall, Veliki Slap:

This article has also appeared in TGR. See all the caving stories at planetcaver.net, or take a look all the stories at Blogspot and TGR! Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Primošten swim

Such a nice beach... also, a red tourist submarine!



Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Read more of the swimming stories from planetswimmer.com!

Morning swim at the Kekkola Manor

Another swim at the Kekkola Manor (Kekkolan kartano). This time in the morning. Refreshing!

Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Read more swimming and sauna stories from planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool!

Champagne served in a hot outdoor tub

This is how to serve champagne in Palju (a hot outdoor tub heated by wood fire): floating.

Kekkola Manor, or the Kekkolan Kartano, is by the way a wonderful place to have events, courses, etc. I'm here now on a work course program.

Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Read more swimming and sauna stories from planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool!

Volvo says hi

Volvo says hi from the airport parking lot at 6am. It was already parked and off, but I had to return inside to pull the circuit breakers, to turn off lights and MCAS.

Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Read more of the Planetskier and Planetcaver stories from Blogspot and TGR.

Siófoki Nagystrand

Before heading back home, we stopped at the little Siófoki to view lake Balaton. Siófoki has a nice old water tower for the views. And the best party beach is also in Siófoki, the Siófoki Nagystrand!

There's no beach per se, but a lakefront, and steps to get into the very nice water. The water runs shallow for a long time, so this a perfect place for a leisurely family swim.

Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. See all the swimming stories at planetswimmer.com, as well as of course at Blogspot and TGR main blog sites.