ALimestone Coast cave diving site has recently been reopened following a closure around seven years ago due to safety concerns by the local council.


The former narrow trapdoor entrance to the Three Sisters Caves in Tantanoola was located around a metre off a rural road with a blind spot in either direction where cars pass at 100kph.


The new cave entrance, which was completed last September, is a cement hatch further off the road side with the South Australian Cave Divers Association (SACDA) now leasing the site.


The SACDA sent their first divers abseiling 18 metres down the new cave entrance into “crystal clear water” last week, much to the group’s excitement.


Association site director Kelvyn Ball said it had been an ongoing goal of the association to reopen the location.


“I became the site director in 2017 and this is one of the things I have been working on over since and the council (Wattle Range Council) have been really good. They helped us with this move,” he said.


“The agreement with council was to move the entrance back off the road so there was less chance of being hit by traffic so they were very concerned about that.


“We have dived here for quite some years and nothing has happened but it was problematic.


“Where they had the entrance the last time, you had to go down, shuffle across rock which made it hard for the ropes … where this is just a straight down across the road and hopefully a lot safer.


“We have 500 cave divers that come across to the Mount Gambier region on a regular basis, we probably have 50 or 60 divers here every weekend and if we have not got sites open they are not going to be here so it is just another site for people to have to be able to dive.”