Expedition Log

Day 7 Tuesday, 17th January 2006

Andy Eavis & James Alker had decided to have an excursion to the Ora Resurgence from Ora village as Andy had been suffering from back spasms during the night. However, Andy thought he had recovered enough so they took two guides, Gaae & Sagi to cut trail to Ora doline. Gaae has a garden on the ridge so, now that Andy's pessemism about porters were forgotten after yesterday's success they confidently followed the guide through his gardens above the village and then on for one hour up the steep slope onto the limestone plateau.

They soon passed Gaae's garden and went roughly west for an hour and a half. They managed to take a couple of GPS readings along the way but, with an hour to go before turnaround time the guides became unsure of the way. They found a ridge after twenty minutes and Andy got a GPS fix which indicated that Ora should be 200m to the west. James and his guide, Sapi went north and then west skirting around a sinkhole.

With no time left and thick track cutting uphill ahead he reluctantly turned back. Sapi became disoriented on the return which was a worry for James. On meeting up with the others again Andy was sure, after taking another GPS fix that James must have been within a few hundred metres of the doline. Andy had come all this way and got so close but had not seen Ora which was really disappointing as he now had to return home to his business.

Ora Camp