South West Life

This is the story of a group of "ordinary" south west people, who went on an adventure and discovered one of the south west's popular tourist attractions.

The year is 1957, and our group consists of five people - Jack and Mary Burrows (who ran a business in Perth), Harley Webster (the Principal of the primary school in Albany), Tony Tapper (an apprentice butcher from Augusta), and Cliff Spackman.

Cliff had led a full and interesting life, including fighting for Australia in World War II and being captured by the Japanese (while recovering in hospital after being wounded). He spent three years as a prisoner of war in the Changi POW camp. He now resided in Augusta, with his wife and 2 children, and owned his own barber's shop and professional fishing boats. At nights, he would also run tours of the local Moondyne Cave in Augusta.

His experience in providing tours of caves was very helpful for this particular expedition, for our 5 intrepid adventurers were out looking for caves. New ones. It was well known at that time that there were probably in excess of 200 caves in the area, and they were off to find one.

The story goes that our group were spread out in a formation approximately thirty yards across and walking through the scrub, when Harley saw a small group of Peppermint trees that were swaying backwards and forwards, and he called out to the others when he found a small hole in the ground that had a strong blast of air coming out of it.

Everyone knew what this meant - a cave - and they all gathered around it and then dropped a couple of rocks down the hole to see if they could hear how deep it might be. They could hear no sound. So what was the next logical decision? Lower someone down of course!

It was Cliff who went in, having a rope tied around him and then lowered down by the others. It took around 40 feet before he passed through the limestone ceiling and into a cavern below. When he passed through the ceiling, and was dangling at the top of the cavern, Cliff could see below him a huge pile of red soil that obviously had washed down the hole over the centuries. He called to the others to lower him down further, and he eventually reached the cavern floor. It was quite clear to Cliff that no person had ever entered the cave before.

Cliff looked around for about half an hour, noting some of the fantastic groups of cave formations, and some water. Overall it was a very large cave system.

He was lifted back up out of the hole, and the group decided that they would come back later at a more convenient time and with better equipment, such as a caving ladder, and explore it properly. It was decided to keep the location of the cave a secret until then.

Everyone went back to their respective jobs and the caving group was broken up. Tony went on a world working tour. It seemed that the cave would remain unexplored for some time.

The following year, Lloyd Robinson (a Speleologist from Woollongong) and Lex Bastian (a Geology student from the WA University) were in the same area looking for caves. Lloyd had actually read in the West Australian newspaper that Cliff had gone into a cave in the area the previous year and, after much searching, Lloyd and Lex came across the same cave and also entered it. Lloyd and Lex were better equipped than the original group, however, and were able to go further through the cave.

After coming out, Lloyd mentioned that he had seen Cliff's footprints on the top of the cone of soil inside of the cave. Cliff met up with Lloyd and Lex, and together they decided to fully explore the cave the following day.

They spent 9 hours in there - walking, crawling, even swimming. It was an experience they would never forget. Cliff recorded it in his diary that it was the most exciting day he ever had. It was amazing to view fantastic shawls, stalagtites, stalagmites, flow stone, etc, and know that no other human had seen it before.

By exploring the cave over the following days, they estimated that they covered at least 3 kilometres. A terrific find - it would be almost impossible to find another one like it.

By now the Press were following the expeditions closely, and in November 1958 the State Government provided $10,000 towards developing the cave for tourists.

Cliff and Lloyd then spent 50 weeks (6 and a half days a week) installing 15 tonnes of timber, 1280 feet of galvanised pipes for handrails, two and half miles of electicral wiring, plus switch box stations, etc. They also had to blast away 147 feet of solid rock in order to create the entrance ramp and tunnel. This required hauling the rock to the surface in half 44 gallon drums and carting it off to be dumped.

The cave was finally opened for public inspection on 26 December 1959, but the official opening was on 7 May 1960, when the Premier of Western Australa, David Brand, opened the cave - as Jewel Cave.

Today, Jewel cave remains one of the most popular and visually spectacular tourist caves in the south west.

So what happened to Cliff? He was appointed as the Chief Guide of the cave, a role he continued for 23 years, until his son Ron took over for another 12 years. Cliff died in 1984.