Hypipamee Crater
We arrived at the crater, relaxed, enjoying the relatively cool temperatures of the Tableland; a welcome relief from the sticky heat and humidity from that morning. A surprising sight, this large hole in the ground in the middle of a tropical rainforest. 80 metres deep, 60 metres across and almost perfectly round, with walls that drop straight down and lush tropical trees and vines and fronds clamouring for the sunlight all around.
We approach the edge and peer in. Sheer walls drop to the lake below, and the near noontime tropical sun lights walls and rock and trees, adding brilliance to the brown-green lake surface at its base. The muddy appearance of the water is uninviting, and we discuss just how deep the lake actually is, and what its bottom would be like. There is plenty of rain here (it’s the tropics) so the water must drain out somewhere. Why is it so muddy?
There is of course no way down (without aid of rope and climbing gear), and who would want to anyway? There is no ledge to stand on and admire the view from down there, and the water is fetid. I suppose looking up out of the hole would be a novel view of the world: 360 degree horizon 80 metres above. But the overwhelming, innately human urge, from up on the edge, the rim … is to throw a rock into it!
We hunt around for a suitable projectile, but nothing is available. Not sure if this is because of the nature of the soil typical of such rainforest, or whether the masses of visitors before us have had the same idea, depleting the immediate vicinity of any good, weighty rocks. We widen our search, but the best we can come up with is a smallish clump of agglomerated dirt: dried mud created by the last storm.
I give it a good piff and we cautiously peer over the edge to watch the anticipated splash. However, it quickly reaches its terminal velocity and travels disappointingly slowly towards the water below. The impact is underwhelming: not a ripple to be seen, and we stare forlornly down into the crater, expecting to see something happen. What we didn’t expect was this: -
Despite the minimal impact of the clod, a long thin intensely black line suddenly appeared on the surface of the lake. Initially it seemed to be a black stick or other object floating on the surface. Surely it couldn’t be something alive? A snake, or eel, or something, summoned to the surface by our intrusion from the murky depths below. It got longer and longer as we watched, and then we realised: the water wasn’t murky at all - it was black! Black as pitch, black as oil, black as the sky of a new moon, miles from civilization. The murky, greeny, browny colour was the colour of a layer of scum that was floating on the surface, and we had disturbed it. Our earthy clump had created enough of an impact to cause this slime to split open, and the crack was propagating across the surface of the lake, opening up the intensely dark waters to the sun, where the incident rays were being swallowed up!
There was a moment of panic, as we thought we may have disturbed some delicate organic balance between the putrid, living layer of grunge and the inky water beneath. Just how big was this crack going to grow? By now a second branch of the disturbance had appeared, so that three pointy arms of blackness were growing across the lake surface, opening wider and wider, jagged, like a crack in glass. We wanted to run, to wipe our hands of this carnage we had created: “we didn’t do it!” we were thinking. But we also wanted to watch, as this slow, transient process took place hundreds of feet below.
After a minute or so, everything settled down. A feeling of relief passed over us as we realised that it had stopped and that no apparent damage had been done. The three black arms of the crack sat there, openings between the living earth above and the deep unknown beneath. It looked like the water went down and down forever.
We relaxed, and started to talk again, laughing nervously at our strange panic over such a silly thing. Our focus moved to other things: the trees, forest, the walls of the crater, the path … the lack of rocks. We joked that we certainly were not the first to have disturbed this strange, eerie place.
Before leaving we casually looked back down into the crater, just in time to see what had only moments before been great black cracks in the slime slowly closing up once more. Like a film in reverse, the slime covered over the water. The final sliver of blackness shrunk back to nothing is a matter of seconds, trapping anything that might be lurking beneath, sealing the dark world underwater once more from the harsh tropical sun, so there is no escape.
We approach the edge and peer in. Sheer walls drop to the lake below, and the near noontime tropical sun lights walls and rock and trees, adding brilliance to the brown-green lake surface at its base. The muddy appearance of the water is uninviting, and we discuss just how deep the lake actually is, and what its bottom would be like. There is plenty of rain here (it’s the tropics) so the water must drain out somewhere. Why is it so muddy?
There is of course no way down (without aid of rope and climbing gear), and who would want to anyway? There is no ledge to stand on and admire the view from down there, and the water is fetid. I suppose looking up out of the hole would be a novel view of the world: 360 degree horizon 80 metres above. But the overwhelming, innately human urge, from up on the edge, the rim … is to throw a rock into it!
We hunt around for a suitable projectile, but nothing is available. Not sure if this is because of the nature of the soil typical of such rainforest, or whether the masses of visitors before us have had the same idea, depleting the immediate vicinity of any good, weighty rocks. We widen our search, but the best we can come up with is a smallish clump of agglomerated dirt: dried mud created by the last storm.
I give it a good piff and we cautiously peer over the edge to watch the anticipated splash. However, it quickly reaches its terminal velocity and travels disappointingly slowly towards the water below. The impact is underwhelming: not a ripple to be seen, and we stare forlornly down into the crater, expecting to see something happen. What we didn’t expect was this: -
Despite the minimal impact of the clod, a long thin intensely black line suddenly appeared on the surface of the lake. Initially it seemed to be a black stick or other object floating on the surface. Surely it couldn’t be something alive? A snake, or eel, or something, summoned to the surface by our intrusion from the murky depths below. It got longer and longer as we watched, and then we realised: the water wasn’t murky at all - it was black! Black as pitch, black as oil, black as the sky of a new moon, miles from civilization. The murky, greeny, browny colour was the colour of a layer of scum that was floating on the surface, and we had disturbed it. Our earthy clump had created enough of an impact to cause this slime to split open, and the crack was propagating across the surface of the lake, opening up the intensely dark waters to the sun, where the incident rays were being swallowed up!
There was a moment of panic, as we thought we may have disturbed some delicate organic balance between the putrid, living layer of grunge and the inky water beneath. Just how big was this crack going to grow? By now a second branch of the disturbance had appeared, so that three pointy arms of blackness were growing across the lake surface, opening wider and wider, jagged, like a crack in glass. We wanted to run, to wipe our hands of this carnage we had created: “we didn’t do it!” we were thinking. But we also wanted to watch, as this slow, transient process took place hundreds of feet below.
After a minute or so, everything settled down. A feeling of relief passed over us as we realised that it had stopped and that no apparent damage had been done. The three black arms of the crack sat there, openings between the living earth above and the deep unknown beneath. It looked like the water went down and down forever.
We relaxed, and started to talk again, laughing nervously at our strange panic over such a silly thing. Our focus moved to other things: the trees, forest, the walls of the crater, the path … the lack of rocks. We joked that we certainly were not the first to have disturbed this strange, eerie place.
Before leaving we casually looked back down into the crater, just in time to see what had only moments before been great black cracks in the slime slowly closing up once more. Like a film in reverse, the slime covered over the water. The final sliver of blackness shrunk back to nothing is a matter of seconds, trapping anything that might be lurking beneath, sealing the dark world underwater once more from the harsh tropical sun, so there is no escape.